A stop at a coffee shop drive-thru quickly turned into a terrifying encounter with police that has left School District 57 Trustee Erica McLean shaken.
The encounter, which occurred Tuesday afternoon, was in relation to a Prince George RCMP investigation of a Volkswagon that had been stolen, however police had mistaken that vehicle to be McLean’s.
McLean said while she was pulled over sending an email, unmarked police vehicles pinned her vehicle, and drawn their weapons.
“All I could hear was ‘put your hands up’, so I put my hands up. I heard ‘open the door’, so I did. I was told to exit the vehicle, so I exited the vehicle and I was put in handcuffs.”
“As this unfolded, officers told me that my vehicle was reported stolen.”
McLean said officers started to question her reaction, asked for her name and if the vehicle was hers, and after checking the registration papers, officers removed the handcuffs, apologized and went over the damage done to the vehicle and the next steps to get that sorted.
As for how this mistake happened, she said officers involved told her that her vehicle matched their description, with the licence plates were very similar.
McLean said while she can respect that, similarities aren’t good enough to draw that kind of response.
“That is the root of all of my questions is what else was there to determine that I was this suspect?”
“From my understanding, as this story develops, I was a lone occupant in my vehicle while the suspects that they were searching for were multiple. There are many unknowns to this that I don’t understand.”
She said she’s still trying to understand and gather information including looking for any potential witnesses or footage of another perspective to help.
Something going on in the Prince George area you think people should know about?
Send us a news tip by emailing pgnews@vistaradio.ca.
