Teen facing charges after Portage la Prairie carjacking

A teen robbed a senior of his pickup truck while wielding a box cutter, then drove through a school parking lot and damaged three police vehicles before crashing into a ditch, police say.

Portage la Prairie RCMP were sent to the site of the carjacking on Fisher Avenue West at about 8:45 a.m. They were told a teen tried to carjack a stranger’s vehicle and failed, then robbed a 77-year-old man of his Toyota Tacoma. The man suffered minor injuries, RCMP said in a news release Monday.

The carjacker sped off eastbound on the Trans-Canada Highway and hit a  vehicle, driven by a 64-year-old woman, from behind. The woman suffered minor injuries and was taken to hospital, RCMP said.

Officers later saw the truck on Highway 13, headed south into Oakville.

“Oakville School was put into lockdown as a precautionary safety measure,” the release said.

After officers spotted the truck again on a residential street, the driver went through the school’s parking lot, hit a police vehicle and sped away northbound on Highway 13. 

The Tacoma and more police vehicles “made contact” as Mounties tried to stop the stolen truck. It overturned into a ditch along Provincial Road 430, about 500 metres north of the Trans-Canada.

A youth from the Rural Municipality of Portage la Prairie is facing more than a dozen criminal charges, including driving while over the legal limit and two counts of assault with a weapon. He faces four more charges under the Highway Traffic Act.