Martin C. Barry, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
On Friday August 8, the Laval Police needed the help of several officers as well as the canine squad to try and track down the perpetrator of a car theft near the Sainte-Rose neighbourhood.
Just after 5:30 am, 9-1-1 received a call notifying them that a grey 2024 Lexus had been stolen in nearby Fabreville.
With modern tracking technology being what it is now, it wasn’t long before the LPD were able to locate the vehicle, which was in motion around 6:55 am as it rolled along Autoroute 440 going west near Saint-François.
Although the police made an initial attempt to intercept the vehicle, the driver refused to stop.
Given that the morning rush-hour was coming up, the officers decided not to engage the vehicle in a chase because of the risk to the public.
Two Highland cows get loose in Sainte-Dorothée
A pair of Highland cows that escaped from their owners in Sainte-Dorothée over the weekend hadn’t yet been taken back into captivity as of last Monday morning.
The owners, who had just purchased the livestock, reported to police that the cows, which are longhaired and have prominent horns, escaped from a transport trailer on avenue des Bois.
They were last seen fleeing southward into farm land. The owners, who are from the Quebec City area, said the cows were not bred in Laval, hence they are not familiar with the territory.
The owners warned that, although the animals are not considered dangerous, it would be inadvisable to run after them. They sayd they might respond to offers of apples or carrots to keep them in place until help arrives to recapture them.
String of fires keep Laval’s firefighters busy during vacation period
While many Laval residents may still be in the midst of their annual summer vacation, the city’s firefighters were busy over the past few weeks dealing with fires in households as well as at commercial and industrial locations.
In one of the most recent outbreaks, around 20 minutes after midnight on July 29, some sheds located behind a multi-unit residence on Jubinville St. in Laval’s Pont-Viau sector caught fire and began to spread to the roof of the main building.
The blaze was serious enough to require the firefighters first arriving to call in two more alarms, bringing more LFD personnel to the scene.
For another recent fire, two days earlier on July 27, the LFD were summoned to a one-story mixed-use residential/commercial building on Samson Blvd. at the corner of Côté St. in Chomedey around 4:20 pm.
The building, housing a small bakery business (a familiar landmark for many of those who regularly drive by on the busy artery), appeared to have not sustained major damage, although the firefighters reported seeing smoke after first reaching the scene.
Around 1 am on July 25, a commercial building housing a bank on Montée du Moulin in Laval’s Saint-François district caught fire after flames from a car that had caught fire spread to the building.
The Montreal daily news website La Presse reported that the car caught fire after it rammed the side of the building, possibly after the driver lost control, and that the police later located and questioned the driver.
CTV and other Montreal-area media also reported that the vehicle belonged to an officer from a Montreal-area police force, without specifying which one and whether the officer was at the wheel at the time of the collision.
The firefighters reported on their X feed that they weren’t certain at one point whether the blaze might escalate into something more serious, as there was a risk the flames might spread into the roof of the building.
Another fire in Saint-François, this time on July 21, saw a home on Romain St. damaged heavily when flames spread to a crawl space underneath the roof.
Finally, on July 12, flames from a pair of sheds behind a home on rue des Crocus in Sainte-Dorothée threatened to spread to nearby homes. The LFD didn’t report any serious damage beyond that.