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MERRITT HERALD FREE
THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 2015 • MERRITT NEWSPAPERS
Stolen pickup burns on 97C
HOT PURSUIT!
By Michael Potestio
Merritt Youth Soccer Association player Noah Black kicks the ball away from his goal with attackers Chloe Forgaard and Covin Pierce in hot pursuit during the four-year-olds’ game at Voght Park on Tuesday evening.
THE HERALD
reporter@merrittherald.com
Merritt Mounties apprehended a car thief who stole a pickup truck in Logan Lake earlier this week. Merritt RCMP received word from Logan Lake’s police detachment on Monday to be on the lookout for a Dodge pickup truck, which a highway patrol officer spotted outside the Merritt Visitor Centre at 4 p.m. that day. “When the member tried to engage, the vehicle took off and headed east on Highway 97C,� RCMP Const. Tracy Dunsmore said. The officer didn’t engage in a pursuit of the vehicle, but did follow the truck up the highway and located the vehicle about 50 kilometres east of Merritt. The vehicle was smoking and losing a lot of its fluids, Dunsmore said. “He wasn’t able to drive very fast,� she said of the driver
Michael Potestio/Herald
of the stolen vehicle. The driver then went through the median and started heading westbound in the eastbound lane. “He didn’t get very far. He pulled back in to the median because the engine caught on fire,� Dunsmore said. At this point there were two police cars on scene, and when the driver pulled over, police were able to arrest him. The stolen vehicle, however, was left to burn. Officers had a couple of fire extinguishers they used to try and extinguish the flames, but were unsuccessful, Dunsmore said. The 36-year-old driver was charged with dangerous operation of a motor vehicle, failing to stop for police and possession of stolen property over $5,000. He has warrants for his arrest in the Lower Mainland for assault with a weapon and identity fraud.
Cellphone game leads to false bomb threat By Michael Potestio THE HERALD
reporter@merrittherald.com
Police evacuated protesters on the side of Highway 8 to the Lower Nicola fire hall after being dispatched to a bomb threat last Thursday. The threat, however, was false and turned out to be two children who accidentally made an emergency call while playing the game Minecraft on a cellphone. Merritt RCMP Cpl. For all your landscaping needs call the professionals at
Doug Stone said dispatchers overheard a conversation from a deactivated cellphone that mentioned someone had a bomb and was going to use it. “The bomb references were actually involving this game,� Stone said. Staff Sgt. Sheila White said two 911 calls were received back-to-back. At least nine police officers were dispatched to the call at about 5 p.m. The biosolids protest site
on Highway 8 was evacuated as a precaution because that was the area the phone was mapping to, Stone said. While protesters were evacuated, police identified the person the phone was registered to, and found the address for that person. That led police to a house on Swakum Road, where Lower Nicola resident Sammie Spahan lives. She told the Herald that her six-year-old son, his cousin and their friend had
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been playing at the end of the street with the deactivated cellphone, which her son had received from a family member. Spahan left her home to travel into Merritt that afternoon and her son went with her, leaving the phone with his two companions — who are each about eight years old. White said a dispatcher will call back to determine if a 911 call is false, and when the dispatcher did that, the
children playing with the phone got scared and buried it. Spahan soon received messages from neighbours who said there were multiple cop cars outside her home. The police called Spahan as well. She said police asked her to come back to the house to help locate the phone, with which she complied. “They searched my house, and outside my house and all around. They
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couldn’t find the phone,� Spahan said. She said police asked her son where his phone was and he told them he had lent it to his friend. “My son was scared, he didn’t know what was going on,� Spahan said. Police met with the friend and recovered the phone. Stone said anyone who accidentally calls 911 should talk to the dispatcher and tell him or her it was an accidental call.
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