Stolen vehicle chase leads to first criminal charge under new COVID-19 law

It was one alleged car thief too many in the Loon Lake area on Friday afternoon.

Now, that 11th person has led the RCMP to laying Saskatchewan’s first criminal charge of disobeying a public health order related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mounties said in a media release their members in the Loon Lake area were first alerted to a stolen black 2000 GMC Yukon SUV at about 1:30 p.m. on March 27. Members from the Meadow Lake RCMP detachment eventually found and started following the SUV on grid Road 699.

They would later find out that the SUV was packed with eleven people inside.

The police members in pursuit were soon joined by cops from other detachments.

“Police officers attempted to stop the vehicle. The vehicle did not stop. Instead, while fleeing, the occupants of the vehicle threw a number of items out of the window of the vehicle. Police officers picked up one of the bags that were thrown and found several firearms inside.”

As the cops continued chasing the Yukon, several people inside it “jumped out of the running vehicle. They were all intercepted one by one” and arrested.

The apparently stolen SUV then turned off of Highway 55 and onto a grid road, eventually stopping in a ditch.

All but two of the people inside ran away; Mounties managed to arrest all of them except for one, for whom they used a police dog to track down and detain.

The cops found several guns, some drugs and “an assortment of stolen property,” the release said.

Ten adults and one youth were arrested and charged.

All of them are charged with “failure to comply with the Public Health Order, section 61 of the Saskatchewan Public Health Act,” according to the release.

RCMP explained in the release that, “these are the first individuals the Saskatchewan RCMP have arrested and charged during the COVID-19 pandemic under the Saskatchewan Public Health Act, which renders illegal, since March 26, 2020, ‘participating in a private gathering of more than 10 people without maintaining a two-meter distancing between people.'”

Seven of the accused are remanded for a Monday court appearance in Meadow Lake provincial court.

Four of the accused have been released under directives to stay inside a specific home for the next 14 days; their court dates are scheduled for July.

All eleven of the alleged thieves have also been charged with gun possession, weapon possession, flight from a police officer, possession of a gun in a vehicle, possession of property obtained by crime and dangerous operation of a vehicle.

Seven of them are facing various other charges, like probation breaches and/or resisting arrest.