A 42-year-old Carey Park man has been charged over two police pursuits across the South West last week. Police allege he rammed four police cars with a stolen Toyota LandCruiser and drove at two officers who were laying road spikes.
He faces a long list of charges, including three counts of assault with intent to prevent arrest, four counts of criminal damage and two counts of endangering life. Police say the pursuits ran across two days, 15 and 16 October, through Glen Iris near Bunbury, Wellesley and Collie. Footage of the chase was released on Thursday 22 October.
What police allege happened
Police say it began at about 1am on Thursday 15 October, when a blue LandCruiser was stolen from a home on Kaloorup Road in Vasse.
Officers say they found the four-wheel drive that afternoon, at about 3pm, at a property on Jacksonia Street in Glen Iris. Police allege the driver went through a fence and hit a parked police car that had no-one inside, then drove off. In the pursuit that followed, police say, the driver failed to stop and drove recklessly, including at speed through an active school zone.
Police called off that chase when the LandCruiser left the road onto a sandy track near Bauhinia Drive.
The vehicle was seen again at about 6.05pm the next day, Friday 16 October, on Wellesley Road North in Wellesley. Police say the driver sped off when officers turned on their lights and sirens, and a second pursuit began.
During that pursuit, police allege, the driver deliberately rammed three police cars with officers inside. Two officers laying a tyre-deflation device had to take cover behind a large tree when the LandCruiser allegedly drove towards them.
The spikes punctured two of the vehicle's tyres, but police say the driver kept going. The Police Air Wing tracked the LandCruiser from above while officers followed on the ground. It was eventually stopped on Mungalup Road in Collie at about 7.45pm. Police say two more police cars were damaged in earlier attempts to stop it.
The footage
Police video of the chase, published by PerthNow and 10 News Perth, appears to show the LandCruiser pushing another car out of a driveway. It then circles and reverses into police cars, crosses an intersection in front of oncoming traffic, and leaves a tyre behind after one collision.
The other charges
The man has also been charged over alleged burglaries in Davenport, Boyanup, Carey Park and Bunbury in the days before the pursuits. He is due to appear in Perth Magistrates Court on Monday 2 November. None of the allegations have been tested in court.
Why it matters
Officers hurt or put at risk while trying to stop a fleeing driver is a familiar story in WA. Ramming offences and tyre-deflation deployments come up again and again in police charge sheets, in the city and in regional areas. In this case, police say two officers were directly in the path of a vehicle while doing one of the riskiest jobs on the road. The case also shows how stretched regional policing can be: it took the Air Wing and crews across a large part of the South West to bring a single stolen car to a stop.
The South West has had several high-speed pursuits involving stolen vehicles in recent years. Many of them started in and around Carey Park and Bunbury's southern suburbs.
Anyone with information about the burglaries or the pursuits can contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or report online at crimestopperswa.com.au.
Photo: LuvsMG481 via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). File photo of a WA Police vehicle, not one involved in the pursuit.
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