Police were told to check out Jamie Hammerstrom on suspicion of stealing a pickup almost two weeks before they located the stolen vehicle. Hammerstrom was allegedly behind the wheel when they did.
The pickup's owner, Bart Sliwa, had his truck go missing on Dec. 10. He was admittedly hanging around an unsavoury group of people in recent times, and he immediately turned to contacts in that group when first his keys and then his truck disappeared.
Within a couple of days, he told The Citizen, word got to him alleging Jamie Hammerstrom, a man well known to police, was the one who had it. Sliwa didn't know the name at all, and didn't know how to verify this tip other than passing the information on to police.
He did so but the truck's whereabouts continued to be unaccounted for, he said, until one day when he was driving the streets and spotted it in use.
"It was Dec. 15 or 16," he said. "My father and I were together, driving [on Highway 97 near 15th Avenue], and as soon as he [the suspect driver] noticed us looking at him, he sped off. He actually tried to ram us. We were able to give police a description of the driver but he got away."
On Dec. 23, the truck was noticed in a rural neighbourhood by a suspicious homeowner who was concerned about the driver and passenger peering in the windows of nearby homes.
When police arrived, the driver began to drive dangerously in an attempt to escape.
Police said they did not engage in a pursuit of the vehicle, but nonetheless the attending members in two different locations were threatened by the hurtling pickup. However, one of the police officers allegedly recognized the driver as Hammerstrom so police let the truck go, so as to spare the public the dangers of a high-speed chase, and arrested him later in a safer location. Another male has also been arrested as a suspected accomplice.
Sliwa wondered why police did not connect Hammerstrom to the truck before these two episodes of threatening driving took place.
"We did," said Prince George RCMP spokesman Cpl. Craig Douglass. "He is one person who gets checked on automatically when certain events happen, and in fact we spoke with him on an unrelated matter as well, in that time period, and at no time was he in possession of that missing vehicle."
Douglass added, "In the absence of evidence we can't do anything, and that is the way it should be or else we would be in an authoritarian society. We can't arrest him if he's not doing anything illegal."
Many chronic offenders are familiar with the police officers involved in tracking them, and even the police vehicles typically used.
"We have certain advantages, as police, but chronic offenders have advantages, too," Douglass said. "It is now a matter before the courts to see if the allegations against Mr. Hammerstrom stand up to the tests required for prosecution."
Sliwa was bothered that if the police did the checks on Hammerstrom like they say they did, that it took too long and involved too many near misses to comfort the public, assuming the charges against Hammerstrom bear out in court.
"I think a lot of times the police's hands are tied. Our rules of society make it hard on police but the rules are there so everyone is protected," said Sliwa, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan. "Those rules should be there, but it would be nice if the police had more teeth, I think that could be done and not cross the line. I think police don't have the resources they need to really pursue cases like they should. I know in this case there were times when they could have been more on the ball. I felt there were lapses. I'm just glad nobody was hurt in the end."
