Nanaimo RCMP are looking for a suspect who allegedly purposely collided with a police cruiser, sending an RCMP member to hospital.
The incident happened Friday, March 7, at about 9 p.m. at University Village Mall in Harewood, near the Buy Low Foods grocery store.
“What our officer saw was a [licence] plate that didn’t match the vehicle,” said reserve Const. Gary O’Brien, Nanaimo RCMP spokesperson. “The vehicle in question was a Chevy Impala, but the plates came back to a Mercedes.”
When the officer tried to block the suspect car from leaving its parking stall, the driver allegedly backed the car into the police vehicle and fled at a high rate of speed.
“That exchange caused our police officer’s head to hit the side window,” O’Brien said. “He was later taken to hospital for treatment and released.”
The officer followed the suspect vehicle for a short distance before deciding the risk to the public by giving chase outweighed the benefit of stopping the vehicle, O’Brien said, so the pursuit was dropped.
Multiple police officers took up the search for the suspect vehicle and a short time later police receive a report that a vehicle had gone over a retaining wall and crashed at a property on Urbains Place in south Nanaimo near Eighth Street and Park Avenue. When police arrived, they discovered it was the suspect vehicle that had fled from the officer in the mall parking lot with an injured person who was a passenger in the vehicle.
“Next to the vehicle was an adult with serious injuries,” O’Brien said. “That person was taken to hospital. The driver was not found. Information from the investigation has led us to believe we know who the driver is, but that person has not been located at this point.”
O’Brien said the driver of the car will be facing multiple charges under the criminal code and the motor vehicle act.
Anyone who has direct knowledge about the incident or knows the identity of the driver is asked to call the Nanaim RCMP non-emergency line at 250-754-2345.
