It’s always nice to know you can rely on your neighbours, as one family in Clyde learned last week.
Westlock RCMP are sending kudos to the residents who helped keep the suspect in the theft of a side-by-side in Clyde the morning of Aug. 13 cornered on a section of land until RCMP arrived.
“Without their help it would have been very difficult to contain the individual to that area,” said Westlock RCMP Corp. Filipe Vicente.
RCMP responded to an 8:30 a.m. call of a male suspect stealing a side-by-side utility vehicle from a yard in Clyde and fleeing the area. By the time they got down the highway from Westlock, the suspect had been chased to a section of land just southeast of the village, said Vicente.
The suspect had been dropped off by a vehicle which then fled the scene before RCMP arrived.
“It was neighbours helping neighbours. They started doing laps around that section of land to make sure he wasn’t going to come out, until we got out there. Someone actually spotted a gentleman on foot a few minutes later and he was arrested.”
One of the neighbours also lent RCMP the use of an ATV to track the suspect into the bush where he eventually abandoned the side-by-side. A police dog was also called in to help with the tracking of the suspect, but he was soon seen walking on Highway 18 and was arrested without further incident.
“It was quite an interesting day,” said Vicente.
While RCMP encourage people not to get involved with suspects for their own safety, the citizens involved in this scenario kept their distance and used their numbers to trap the suspect in a large area until RCMP could attend.
“With all the public frustration out there, people can get carried away, but they were calm and kept their composure and no one went over the line and got themselves in trouble. There is a fine line between people wanting to help and people getting themselves in trouble,” said Vicente.
“We cover a very large area and neighbours helping each other is great ... without them there was a very good chance that this person would have fled,” said Vicente. “It was very good how everyone got to work together,” said Vicente.
Michael Bratko, 28, of Fort Saskatchewan is charged with three counts of mischief over $5,000 and two counts of failure to comply with a recognizance. He is also charged with theft of a motor vehicle, possession of stolen property and possession of methamphetamine.
He was released after a judicial hearing and is scheduled to make his first appearance in Westlock Provincial Court Sept. 4, 2019.
