Cops discover drugs, guns in truck parked at Penticton Walmart

Mounties got more than they bargained for after busting a pair of suspected shoplifters last week outside the Walmart store in Penticton.

Rather than ill-gotten groceries, police recovered two semi-automatic rifles, ammunition, a stolen motorbike, three grams of cocaine and much more, a judge heard Monday at a bail hearing for the two accused.

Kelowna residents Griffon Gagnon, 31, and Rylee Wagstaff, 23, are each charged with five firearms offences, plus single counts of possession of stolen property over $5,000 and possession of a controlled substance.

Gagnon is charged with two additional counts of possession of a firearm contrary to a court order.

Court heard members of the Penticton RCMP Targeted Enforcement Unit watched the pair arrive at Walmart around 9:30 p.m. on Aug. 25 in a pickup truck that had been connected to a report of shoplifting a day earlier in Kelowna.

Suspecting the two may try to steal from Walmart, officers tailed them and watched as Gagnon and Wagstaff both left the grocery floor multiple times to go outside or visit the washroom.

They were arrested in the parking lot after checking out. Officers immediately noticed what they believed to be drug baggies inside the truck, and started a more thorough search of the vehicle.

In the rear of the cab, Mounties found the two rifles, one of which had been reported stolen earlier in the week in Kelowna, plus several loaded magazines, two boxes of ammunition, and a hunting knife.

And in the back of the truck, officers found a 2009 KTM dirt bike that had also been reported stolen in Kelowna.

Defence counsel Bob Maxwell said Gagnon told him he borrowed the truck from a friend to pick up the dirt bike, for which he paid $2,000, and then go camping in the Grand Forks area. Gagnon denied knowledge of the guns.

“He said, ‘I didn’t know what was in the back, I never bothered checking in the back,’” Maxwell related.

Gagnon and Wagstaff had been living with Gagnon’s mother in Kelowna. Both are addicted to heroin and unemployed, the court heard.

Owing to his lengthy prior criminal record for drug trafficking and breaching court orders, Gagnon was denied bail. Wagstaff, whose record is shorter, was released.

Both are due back in court on Sept. 7.