By Barbara Murray

The Mounties have caught their man.  Or men in this case.  And the capture of the men after a high speed chase, an attempted escape by water, a pursuit by motor boat and an arrest at gunpoint was described by Bowen RCMP Constable Richard DeJong as “…something you would see in the movies.”

It all started when two dangerous criminals with a Canada-wide warrant decided that they would make Bowen Island their next port of call.  The two men had allegedly stolen a vehicle from a Vancouver golf course last Sunday.  On Monday the drove the car onto the 8am ferry to Bowen Island and sometime during the day they targeted their skills on three houses in Queen Charlotte Heights.  “These guys were professionals,” said DeJong.

One of the robbery victims spotted a suspicious vehicle and phoned it in.  Corporal Bruce Wright took the call and went up to the area where he too saw the car.  “He attempted to stop it but they did not comply,” said DeJong.

The vehicle sped towards the Cove and then westward with Wright in pursuit.  By this time DeJong had been alerted and joined in the chase.  But not for long.  “Their speeds were getting dangerous,” said DeJong and the RCMP decided to call off the pursuit.  “It was pretty tough to find them once we shut the chase down,” said DeJong.  By this point the officers knew they were dealing with something of a larger nature: Wright had phoned in the plates and discovered that the vehicle was stolen.

They didn’t know which road the men had driven down but received tips from Bowen Islanders as to where the car was last seen.  “I went out to Tunstall Bay and saw the vehicle,” said DeJong.  He was told by people on the beach that the men had taken a Zodiac and were paddling towards Onion Island (at the foot of Adams Road).

The two officers drove to the bottom of Adams Road where they could see the suspects out in the water trying to find another boat in which to make an escape.  “They were close enough for us to yell that they were under arrest.  The men were paddling around, using an oar and a piece of two by four, going from boat to boat,” he said.  One of the men got into a kayak and started off towards the Pasley Islands.  The other man stayed in the Zodiac.  DeJong commandeered an outboard motor boat and headed out to sea.  “A Bowen Islander drove the boat,” he said.  “We had a lot of help from Bowen Islanders.”

The thieves had simulated that they were armed although, as it turns out, they were not.  DeJong’s boat caught up to the man in the kayak and he arrested the man at gunpoint.  Meanwhile back on the beach Corporal Wright had arrested the other man whose Zodiac had drifted into shore.