A police chase through South Quesnel which saw a fleeing driver speed through a construction zone on the wrong side of the highway lead to Quesnel RCMP seizing, drugs, cash and a loaded handgun with a silencer.
Police are looking for any video the public may have captured while trying to stop a silver Mercedes just after 5 p.m. on Thursday, April 15.
The chase ended after RCMP used a spike belt to stop the car north of the Quesnel River Bridge.
Sgt. Richard Weseen said police first noticed a silver Mercedes driving 145 km/hour just north of Kersley just after 5 p.m. When police tried to stop the vehicle, it sped off, northbound on Highway 97 towards Quesnel.
When the car entered the city, another police officer tried to stop the car, which drove on the wrong side of the highway through a construction zone in an attempt to evade capture.
Police set up two spike belts on the north side of Dragon Lake which managed to puncture the car’s tires, causing it to crash into two other vehicles. In another attempt to escape, the driver rammed a police vehicle.
“The police utilized a conductive energy weapon (TASER) and pepper spray to ultimately arrest the male driver. A female passenger was also taken into custody,” a Quesnel RCMP news release reads.
The reason for the man’s desperation to escape became obvious after police received a warrant to search the car. Inside they found 723 grams of fentanyl, 659 grams of meth and 445 grams of cocaine. They also found a handgun, silencer and $20,000 in cash.
To put the drug seizure into perspective, cocaine is sold at the street level in half grams (0.5 grams) and meth and fentanyl are sold at the microgram (0.1 gram) amounts. When you do the math, this seizure took a lot of doses of harmful drugs off the streets,
Corp. Matt Isaak of the Quesnel RCMP Crime Reduction Unit said. The fact that this man had a loaded handgun with a silencer is also disturbing and speaks to the level of violence associated to the drug trade.
A 33 year-old-male and 30-year-old female who are not from Quesnel received minor injuries during their arrest. No police or bystanders were hurt, but some vehicles were damaged.
The driver of the Mercedes was reckless and had a complete disregard for the safety of others on the road. Spike belts were used to stop the vehicle before it entered the downtown core as it was the end of the business day where there was a high volume of pedestrian and vehicle traffic,
Sgt. Richard Weseen of the Quesnel RCMP said. After the vehicle was disabled, the driver was goal oriented to escape, colliding with civilian and police vehicles. We are fortunate he was stopped before he seriously injured anyone.
Quesnel RCMP ask anyone with video of the chase or arrest to contact their office, (250)-992-9211.
READ MORE: Quesnel RCMP seize half-kilo of drugs
Do you have something to add to this story, or something else we should report on? Email: cassidy.dankochik@quesnelobserver.com
@GimliJetsMan
cassidy.dankochik@quesnelobserver.com
