Car thieves shoot at witness who tailed them from Flin Flon
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Car thieves who peeled out of Flin Flon after gassing up without paying, shot at a witness who decided to tail them.
Mounties in the small city near the Saskatchewan border were called about a number of people fuelling up a vehicle, then leaving without paying, at a service station just after 8 a.m. Sunday.
As officers rushed to the scene, RCMP dispatch got a call from the witness who advised they were following the suspects’ vehicle, which was headed south on Highway 10.
The dispatcher told the witness to pull back, but the caller kept following until the suspects rammed into them, threw items at them and shot at them, RCMP said on Tuesday. The witness wasn’t injured.
Mounties learned the vehicle had been reported stolen in Pelican Narrows, Sask., earlier that day. The 21-year-old vehicle owner had been carjacked at gunpoint by four people.
RCMP patrolled in the area, but did not locate the stolen vehicle which they believed was headed to Thompson.
Later, Thompson Mounties on patrol at about 1:20 p.m. spotted a woman walking on the road near Paint Lake, south of the city. It was deemed suspicious given no homes or communities are nearby. The area is a 350-kilometres drive from Flin Flon.
Officers questioned the 32-year-old woman, who told them she was from Pelican Narrows. She was detained.
Further down the road, Mounties found the stolen vehicle and arrested two suspects who were sitting inside it — a man and a woman, both 27.
RCMP spokesman Sgt. Paul Manaigre said it’s believed they were trying to evade Mounties, after the vehicle had been seen earlier on Highway 6 but sped away before officers could turn around and catch up.
Mounties found five firearms and were told that a fourth suspect, a 26-year-old man, had walked into the bush.
More officers from the Thompson detachment, along with the police dog unit, a drone operator and provincial conservation officers arrived to track the potentially armed suspect in the woods.
He was arrested several kilometres away on a provincial road.
Officers who searched the stolen vehicle a second time found a sawed-off shotgun and a pellet gun, as well as ammunition and a sword.
The four accused have been charged with theft, possession of property obtained by crime and firearms offences. They remain in custody.
fpcity@freepress.mb.ca