A man is in custody after what police describe as the carjacking of a taxi cab, which led to a dramatic pursuit and takedown in uptown New Westminster on Wednesday afternoon.
“I was just shocked to see vehicular violence like that, it was just not something you regularly see,” witness Anthony Smith told Global News.
Smith lives in an apartment above the intersection of 6th Street and 7th Avenue, and said he was startled by loud noises outside shortly before 2 p.m.
“It was a taxi cab running into other vehicles … it was on purpose, he was smashing into vehicles to get away, to escape. There was one police vehicle at that time trailing him and he drove down towards the pier section of New West,” Smith said.
“Then about five minutes later, he came back up the road and he had about 10 police cars trailing him this time. And the police did an excellent job — they pinned him in like, something out of the show 24. It was like watching an exercise done on TV … they pinned him in, they circled him, and they made sure he wasn’t endangering the public anymore.”
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The chase was captured in dramatic video posted to social media, which shows the cab speeding down the street pursued by several police vehicles.
The taxi eventually tries to make a U-turn in an intersection, at which point it is boxed in by police and the occupant is arrested.
New Westminster City Coun. Paul Minhas was just coming out of his barber shop when he found himself face to face with the incident.
“(It was) very close, it was traumatic, let’s put it that way. I’ve seen things like that in the movies, but never thought that I would be a witness to something like that in real life,” Minhas said.
“Thank God it didn’t happen earlier, or he was going on the sidewalk or something. This is an area where a lot of seniors live, it’s also an area that is highly used when the kids are on break just down the street. Imagine the damage that could have been done, how many people could have been hurt or injured or killed.”
New Westminster police Sgt. Andrew Leaver said the incident is being investigated as a carjacking, and that the taxi’s legitimate driver was treated for minor injuries.
Police are still trying to piece together a motive and a full picture of what actually happened.
“We had multiple 911 callers telling us that pedestrians are running out of the way, that vehicles are being struck,” he said.
“So our officers located the vehicle and were able to block it in. The suspect was safely arrested and transported to local area hospital with minor injuries.”
Police are also appealing to witnesses and anyone with relevant video to come forward.
“This is a very busy area of our city,” Leaver said.
“Given the time of day there was multiple pedestrians around, lots of vehicles, potential for a lot of serious injury, but thankfully no serious injuries were reported to us.”
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