A Kelowna, B.C., man with a lengthy criminal record faces a number of charges relating to a Dec. 29 standoff.
Michael Dennison, 31, has been charged in connection with the police incident. He faces charges of flight from police, dangerous driving, driving without a licence, breach of probation order and two firearms charges.
There were seven people taken into custody during the daylong incident but RCMP said Wednesday that he is currently the only one charged, though the investigation is ongoing.
The incident got underway just after 9 a.m. on Thursday, Dec. 29, when police noticed a suspicious white Ford Escape in the driveway of a home in the 1000 block of Cactus Road in Kelowna.
RCMP didn’t explain why that vehicle had been deemed suspicious but after it was spotted, two people got in the vehicle and drove to a gas station, RCMP said.
Shortly after the discovery, two occupants drove the vehicle to a nearby gas station, and when Mounties turned on their emergency equipment, the occupants sped off.
“(They) traveled down a busy road at a high rate of speed swerving in and out of oncoming traffic,” RCMP said in a press release, noting that with public safety in mind they did not pursue.
An officer later located a firearm and ammunition on the side of the road that was believed to have been thrown out the window of the fleeing Escape.
Eventually, the Escape was found empty in the same area of Cactus Road where it was originally located and officers determined that its occupants were where they first spotted them.
As this series of events unfolded, the RCMP received a second call of an unrelated incident two doors down from the initial call on Cactus Road.
Both incidents took police the bulk of the day to deal with.
It’s not the first time Dennison has found himself at odds with the police.
In January 2017, Dennison, then 25, and Ryan Regan, 33, fled a police stop in Penticton and headed north.
RCMP set up a blockade near Gorman Brothers Sawmill in West Kelowna, but they blew through it, damaging a police car in the process.
The two made it as far as the W.R. Bennett Bridge in Kelowna before they were arrested in an armed police takedown.
Dennison pleaded guilty to dangerous operation of a vehicle, operating a vehicle while disqualified and breach of probation.
The arrest closed the bridge for several hours, causing massive traffic delays in the area.
For that, he received a six-month sentence.
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