Suspect vehicle crashes, bystanders nab driver in downtown Winnipeg

WINNIPEG – A suspect vehicle crashed at a downtown intersection following a police pursuit Friday afternoon.

“I saw this silver van going through the intersection so I tried to speed up to get through but I guess I wasn’t going fast enough,” Lorissa Hildebrandt said.

The grey minivan collided with two other vehicles at Ellice Avenue and Donald Street at about 2:30 p.m.

“It was a sudden bang and then we were just like, what happened? It just happened so fast,” Dwayne Fehr explained Friday.

Witnesses say the driver of the suspect vehicle fled on foot and tried to escape by jumping into the driver’s seat of another vehicle nearby but was restrained by bystanders.

“We were just coming out of giant tiger and we saw the car that got hit coming this way and the van ran a red light, hit her and the car spun around they ended up here, the lady driver started running and my wife went and chased her and pulled her out of the vehicle she jumped into,” Nicole Welsh explained.

“She jumped in inside of it and said drive drive, and I open up the door and said what are you doing, you just hit someone where are you going,”  Johanna Mills told Global News.

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There were no serious injuries.

Officers were pursuing the minivan elsewhere in the core area, though they may have terminated the pursuit before the suspect vehicle crashed on Ellice Avenue in front of a Giant Tiger department store.

Ellice was closed from Smith Street to Hargrave Street, Cumberland Avenue was closed at Hargrave and Donald was closed at Notre Dame Avenue for a short time while police conducted their investigation.

The driver in the suspect vehicle remains in police custody.