Driver facing charges in chase, crash

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This article was published 15/04/2024 (551 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A man is facing charges after a meeting to sell an item led to a fight, a vehicle chase and a crash in which both trucks rolled.

RCMP said Monday that one truck chased the other and caused the crash in the Rural Municipality of East St. Paul on Wednesday night.

The would-be seller of the item and driver of the pursuing Nissan pickup truck, a 30-year-old Winnipeg man, is facing four counts of dangerous driving causing bodily harm and four counts of assault with a weapon. He was released.

The four people in a Dodge pickup truck, including the would-be buyer, were taken to hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries. STARS air ambulance flew two men to Health Sciences Centre. The four — three men, ages 37, 30 and 26, and a 23-year-old woman — are all from Winnipeg.

Video from a home security system showed sparks flying while the trucks collided and flipped into a ditch next to a path for pedestrians and cyclists.

Witnesses told the Free Press last week the crash was apparently preceded by a near-fistfight in a convenience store parking lot. The crash happened on Raleigh Street, just south of Pritchard Farm Road, a short time later, at about 8:15 p.m.

“It had escalated to a physical altercation and then one of the vehicles, the Dodge, left the scene and was pursued by the Nissan,” RCMP spokeswoman Tara Seel said Monday.

Seel wouldn’t disclose what the item being sold was, saying only that it wasn’t an illegal item and that the would-be transaction is what led to the fight and chase.

“It wasn’t a road-rage incident, because I know there’s been a lot of discussion about that on social media and the like,” Seel said, adding RCMP are still investigating.

Cellphone video recorded by a customer at Garven Convenience, located about 5 km away in the RM of Springfield, showed a man taking a swing at another man, who appeared to dodge the punch while backing away.

The customer said he was sitting in his vehicle outside the store and that he couldn’t hear what the men or other people nearby were saying.

Seel encouraged buyers and sellers to choose a “safe” location when conducting transactions, such as well-lit, highly populated parking lots.

RCMP would not confirm whether the same people were involved in the fight and the collision. A man at the store said officers went there to look at video of the altercation.

fpcity@freepress.mb.ca

STARS ambulance in east st. paul crash footage
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