Car storms through RCMP barricade, spike belt and gunfire

Apr 17, 2014 | 11:19 AM

Two people have been arrested after a series of take-down tactics around the La Ronge area.

On Tuesday, La Ronge RCMP was notified of a speeding grey four-door car heading northbound on Highway 2.

RCMP determined that car was linked to an aboriginal man wanted on a Canada Wide Warrant from Calgary.

Around 3 p.m. that day RCMP set up a roadblock south of La Ronge on Hwy 2 using three police vehicles and a spike belt, which was positioned in the centre of the highway beyond the RCMP vehicles.

Officers were stationed outside the vehicles and an RCMP release says that as the car approached it “appeared to accelerate.” One officer at the barrier fired his
shotgun once at the suspect. However, the car continued on, and no one was hurt.

“In an attempt to maneuver through the road block, the suspect car struck a marked RCMP Crown Victoria on the front left corner, causing extensive damage. The other police vehicles sustained no damage. The suspect car then drove over the spike belt, entered the east ditch 300 meters away and stopped,” RCMP said in a statement.

An 18-year-old man and a 16-year-old girl fled the car on foot in the bush line along the highway at which point RCMP secured the scene and awaited Prince Albert RCMP Police Dog Services (PDS). Once PDS arrived, the group started searching for the two suspects.

By 7:10 p.m. “additional RCMP members, assisted by conservation officers on snowmobiles, located and arrested both suspects on the east side of Potato Lake.”

The suspects were taken by snowmobile to an RCMP vehicle and then to a La Ronge Hospital as a “precaution,” according to RCMP. Both were later released into RCMP custody.

Jordan Malcom Desjarlais and the girl, who cannot be named due to the Youth Criminal Justice Act, appeared in La Ronge Provincial Court on Thursday morning.

The girl faces one count of resisting arrest, two counts of breach of an undertaking for an unrelated matter out of Red Deer, Alta.

Desjarlais, who is on a Canada Wide Warrant stemming from the Calgary Police Service, is currently in custody. He is charged with one count of dangerous operation of a vehicle, one count of failure to stop a vehicle as soon as is reasonable while being pursued by a peace officer operating a motor vehicle, one count of failing to stop at the scene of an accident, three counts of assaulting a peace officer with weapon, one count of theft of a motor vehicle, one count of wilful mischief endangering life and one count of resisting a peace officer.

Prince Albert RCMP Forensic Identification section is helping with the examination of the car and a traffic collision analyst and a traffic collision reconstructionist are assisting.

The investigation is continues.

sstone@panow.com

On Twitter: @sarahstone84