A car chase that started in Airdrie with a stolen vehicle, ripped through Cochrane on Tuesday. Multiple accidents, a hijacked vehicle and finally a dramatic arrest in Canmore highlighted the incident after the suspect crashed into a RCMP truck.
A Cochrane resident who watched the suspect drive through town said the incident made her consider switching where she calls home.
“The whole thing made me want to move,” said Kristen Janzen, a Cochrane resident for six years.
“Especially because I also live close to the house with the drug bust – it feels like everything is happening at the same time. It is unnerving.”
The Cochrane RCMP were advised at approximately 11 a.m. on Sept. 13 that there was an erratic driver in a stolen cube van from Airdrie heading toward Cochrane.
One of the people who reported the vehicle in Airdrie said her and her husband were driving when they were almost hit by the Albertan man, who is now facing numerous charges.
“We were heading west out of Airdrie where we had been stopped because there was construction and we noticed this cube van coming up the walking/bike path – he was driving west on an eastbound road and he flew off the bike path where he flew in the air and landed in front of us,” said Abby Scott, a resident who lives in the rural area around Cochrane.
“We thought he was going to kill someone. He just missed us by inches.”
After almost crashing in Airdrie and driving the wrong way down Township Road 567, the suspect continued through to Cochrane where Cochrane RCMP located the suspect in the Sunset community and attempted to stop the vehicle. The driver ignored police and continued driving, turning south onto Highway 22.
Janzen said she watched the suspect drive from the Sunset community, where the driver “blew through a stop sign” and “drove on the wrong side of the road” down Highway 22 travelling south.
RCMP reported the driver collided with another vehicle at the Highway 1A and Highway 22 intersection but did not stop and continued to drive south on Highway 22 until he hit a second vehicle on Griffin Road.
“As I passed Quigley Drive, the driver passed on the right hand side and got held up at the red light, he then tried to jump over the median in the van but it wasn’t working so he tried to back over the median but it was getting stuck, so he hopped out of the vehicle and took a lady’s jeep,” Janzen recalled.
“Everyone was staying in their vehicles, there was a lady who got hit in her vehicle who didn’t see the whole thing, she was honking her horn but I don’t think she knew how serious the situation was.”
After the suspect stole the Jeep Wrangler, he continued south on Highway 22, where witnesses reported seeing the stolen vehicle travelling west on Highway 1, driving into oncoming traffic.
In Canmore, the suspect driving the Wrangler led RCMP west on the Trans-Canada, his vehicle left the highway at the west end of Canmore, then proceeded through the downtown core, across the Bow River bridge and travelled eastward on Three Sisters Drive before finally turning into the golf course property.
Members of the Canmore detachment were notified where they found the stolen vehicle and suspect, who was breaking into vehicles at the Stewart Creek Golf and Country Club clubhouse in Canmore around 12:45 p.m.
There, the Wrangler crashed into an RCMP vehicle, causing extensive damage to both. The driver was arrested after the crash as he tried to flee the scene.
The investigation is currently on going and charges are pending. The identity of the suspect is not being released at this time.
- with files from Rocky Mountain Outlook
