An eagle-eyed, observant off-duty Mountie nabbed a pair of wanted property crime criminals who allegedly stole a Ford pickup truck at the Innisfail High School earlier in the day.
RCMP Sgt. Lori Eiler said sometime between 11 a.m. and noon on March 23 a Ford F-250 was stolen from the high school.
She said local RCMP officers were dispatched to investigate. Later in the evening, after the investigating officers' shift, one of them was “very observant” and saw the stolen vehicle and immediately contacted on-duty detachment members, said Eiler.
She said police officers from the detachment responded and two adult suspects, a male and a female, were arrested.
She said the male was wanted by police on 21 outstanding warrants, while the female was being pursued on 15.
Eiler said the offences faced by the pair were largely related to property crime offences. She said the pair was also on release under “a number” of court-ordered conditions resulting from those charges.
The man and woman are in custody pending the outcome of a bail hearing. Eiler said police would be seeking their ongoing detention. The names of the suspects were not released last week, as the new charges have not yet been sworn, said Eiler.
“We are seeing a little bit of a spike in property crimes, car thefts and theft from vehicles,” said Eiler. “We would like to remind the public to make sure they are locking up and securing their property.
“In other cases we are seeing a lot of crime of opportunity,” she added. “Typically what we find from theft of vehicles, are people just roaming the streets, trying to open door handles. When they can't get into a vehicle they will opt to go to the next, so we are reminding citizens not to give them any opportunity.”
