A man who stole an RCMP cruiser on May 16 in Sackville has been charged with more than 20 offenses by the Nova Scotia RCMP.
In a news release, Cumberland County RCMP say that Kyle Douglas Smith of Moncton appeared in Amherst Provincial Court on May 21 and was remanded into custody. He’s next scheduled to appear in on June 16.
Douglas was arrested on May 16 after spending just under 20 minutes in the fully marked New Brunswick RCMP car that he allegedly stole from Wright Street in Sackville.
According to New Brunswick RCMP spokesperson Corporal Hans Ouellette, on the afternoon of Friday, May 16, an RCMP officer was on Wright Street in Sackville responding to a report of “an unwanted person at a local business.”
Ouellette says that while the officer was attempting to arrest the person, “the suspect resisted his arrest and managed to take possession of the police vehicle.” The man drove the stolen police car onto the TransCanada highway at exit 504 heading towards Nova Scotia.
Cumberland County RCMP say they received a report about the stolen police car at 2:32pm, and movements of the car were being monitored through the car’s GPS system by New Brunswick and then Nova Scotia RCMP.
At some point the driver left the TransCanada highway, and officers from the Amherst Police Department attempted to stop the stolen car on highway 2 in Upper Nappan. Cumberland County RCMP say the driver fled along Southhampton Road towards Amherst Point, and that’s where police deployed a spike belt. The vehicle was damaged by the spike belt, but continued back onto the TransCanada highway heading back westward towards Sackville.
At about 2:49pm, just 17 minutes are first getting the call about the stolen vehicle, Cumberland County RCMP say “officers safely forced the car off the highway near the Fort Lawrence overpass and took the suspect into custody.”
Cumberland County RCMP says no one was injured during the arrest. Ouellette was says he originally understood that two officers sustained minor injuries, but defers to the Cumberland County report.
Cumberland County RCMP say the force was “prepared to issue an alert through the Alert Ready system” but the suspect was “apprehended quickly and safely.”
A section of the TransCanada highway in Nova Scotia was closed for about six hours in support of the police operation on May 16.
Ouellette says the investigation by the New Brunswick RCMP is still ongoing.
