Two-province chase ends with arrest of alleged car thieves

Two men from Frog Lake, Alta., are in custody after allegedly stealing and abandoning a vehicle, stealing another one and fleeing from police over two spike belts, driving until all the rubber came off their tires.

The events started at 9:30 a.m. Friday when Maidstone RCMP received a call of an abandoned vehicle in the RM of Williton in west-central Saskatchewan, according to an RCMP news release.

An officer in the area saw a different “suspicious vehicle” that had recently been stolen. The officer tried to stop the vehicle, but it was driven away, “through a construction zone at high speed,” and the officer did not pursue it.

The vehicle was abandoned a short time later, RCMP said, and a truck and trailer were stolen from the same area. Officers soon found the trailer. Then at 11 a.m. the Britannia Rural Crime Watch group saw occupants of the stolen truck “trying to access homes and driving into farmyards,” the news release said.

Officers located the two suspects at 11:30 a.m., still in the stolen truck, north of Highway 3 on a road near the Alberta border. They followed the truck into Alberta, making two attempts to stop it with a spike belt, but the truck carried on with deflated tires until “there was no rubber left,” the news release said.

The two men then allegedly fled on foot into the bush. RCMP said officers used a Taser to gain control of one of the men and the other was arrested without incident.

The two men are charged with resisting arrest, fleeing police, theft, possession of stolen property, assault with a weapon and dangerous driving. They also had arrest warrants from other police agencies and face further unrelated charges. They are scheduled to appear in Lloydminster provincial court on Tuesday.