Car thief jumps into lake in Pointe-Claire
By Chelsey St-Pierre
The Suburban
Some Beaconsfield and Pointe-Claire residents were rudely awakened by police sirens at 6:30 a.m. last Saturday morning. Quebec Provincial Police (SQ) officers attempted to intercept two vehicles stolen from Ontario that were travelling on Highway 20 East near the Woodland exit in Beaconsfield. Officers managed to seize one of the two vehicles on Murray Garden in Pointe-Claire however the driver ran away on foot.
Police officers succeeded in apprehending the suspect who fled south to the Saint-Louis Lakefront at Villeneuve Terrace and Lakeshore Boulevard. The suspect jumped in Lake Saint-Louis as he was being chased by police officers. With the assistance of the Montreal Fire Department, police officers apprehended the man who was then arrested and is now facing charges of reckless driving, obstruction of justice and possession of stolen property.
Pointe-Claire residents living nearby watched as police officers pulled the suspect out of the water, arrested him and placed him in their vehicle. One resident snapped some photos and sent it to The Suburban. “It is concerning to see how the West Island has changed so significantly over the years with the rise in crime,” Another resident said to The Suburban. “This used to be a quiet place to live. Now we wake up on a Saturday morning to this kind of stuff and then we open the newspaper and read about more news like this happening nearby. It was never like this before.”
Recently, just a few blocks East on Lakeshore, a six-story building was evacuated as police searched for another car thief that abandoned a vehicle in a residential parking lot after a police chase following a hit and run on a police officer who was on foot in Lachine.
The second suspect managed to evade being captured in the initial police vehicle chase. A K-9 unit was deployed and SPVM officers were mobilized in collaboration with the SQ to search for the second suspect, who has not been caught to date. The SQ investigation is ongoing. “We are committed to catching crime suspects,” SQ spokesperson Nicolas Scholtus said to The Suburban. n
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