A suspect fleeing on foot from Vancouver police collided with what is believed to be an unmarked police car Oct. 30 before being taken to the ground by a police dog in a chaotic takedown on Southwest Marine Drive.
Those new details emerged Tuesday after a video surfaced on YouTube that captured footage of a portion of the arrest not revealed in a VPD news conference last week.
It was the same arrest where an innocent 75-year-old man was bitten by one of two police dogs used in the operation to nab three burglary suspects connected to break-ins in Vancouver and Maple Ridge.
Police originally said Oct. 31 the suspect was arrested in a Mercedes at the Chevron gas station where Southwest Marine Drive meets Granville Street, near the former Fraser Arms hotel.
The video, which was taken by a motorist with a dashboard camera who goes by the YouTube handle of xSupaD, shows the suspect in a grey tracksuit run from the area of the gas station, across Southwest Marine Drive and into the parking lot of the former hotel.
The suspect then attempts to come back across Southwest Marine Drive but collides with a grey sedan, believed to be an unmarked police car. The suspect continues to run but trips on a median before a police dog knocks him to the ground and into to the side of a car idling in traffic.
Several police officers set on the man, with some of them punching him as he tries to remove the dog’s mouth from his leg. The audio is muted for most of the video, but the dog handler, who delivers two punches, can be heard yelling to “let go of my dog.”
Prior to the chase, two other suspects were arrested without incident in the parking lot of the former Fraser Arms hotel. All three suspects were in a pickup truck when police rolled up behind them to make the arrests at around 5:30 p.m.
Police released a dog to apprehend the suspect who fled, but the dog ended up biting the leg of a 75-year-old man, who had just exited his truck in the parking lot.
At that point, police said, they called off that dog from the operation. The man was treated in hospital and released. Police refused to release the extent of the man’s injuries.
Const. Jason Doucette, a VPD media liaison officer, told reporters at an Oct. 31 news conference the suspect tried to get into a taxi (as seen on the video) before he was arrested — with the help of a second police dog — inside a Mercedes at the gas station.
“The suspect was able to get the driver out of that vehicle, and as he attempted to get away in that car, it did not go into motion,” Doucette told reporters at the time. “But our dog handlers were able to get him in the driver’s seat, along with our officers. He was taken into custody before any further harm could be done.”
Asked Wednesday why details captured in the video footage were not shared at the Oct. 31 news conference — and show the suspect not being arrested in the gas station — Doucette said he relayed the information to media that he had at that time from investigators.
Doucette wouldn’t say whether the grey sedan, which emerged from the gas station and collided with the suspect, belonged to police. But, he acknowledged, the car was “driven in a manner consistent with being part of the investigation.”
The police apologized to the 75-year-old man and are reviewing the arrest plan to learn what wrong and how to prevent another innocent victim from being bitten by a dog.
Meanwhile, the suspects remain in custody.
Graham Scott Beattie, 40, of Surrey has been charged with two counts of breaking into a dwelling house and one charge of attempted theft of an auto over $5,000.
Harold Jason Gillis, 42, of Richmond has been charged with two counts of breaking into a dwelling house and Joseph Leon Kidd, 34, of Vancouver is facing one count of breaking into a dwelling house.
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