CRIME CLIPS: High school broken into; 27-year-old GF male in possession of stolen church property

By Michelle Croissant

Despite the freezing temperatures and icy roads, Staff Sgt. Jim Harrison of the Grand Forks RCMP said that they haven't had too many problems in the past week due to winter driving conditions. 

"People I guess are starting to get used to the ice on the road. There's always that first few weeks of winter where people are...more vulnerable to accidents because they haven't had their mind set to driving in this. As the winter goes on, people get a little better at it." He laughed. "Every year we experience that, you know, we get a bunch of vehicles off the road because they're not driving to road conditions."

There were only two interesting files of note this week. "One was an injury accident with some fairly serious injuries," reported Harrison. "The rest were all kind of routine." There were 85 files between Midway and Grand Forks last week. 

When two Fords collide

On Nov. 27 at 2:48 p.m. police were dispatched to a collision at 21st Street and Hwy 3 in Grand Forks, involving a Ford F450 cube van and a black Ford Fusion. The driver of the cube van, a 46-year-old Surrey male, explained that he was heading eastbound on Hwy 3 when the Ford Fusion made a left turn in front of him, coming off of 21st Street onto the highway. 

"The van struck the side of the Ford Fusion, losing control of his vehicle and ending up down in the parking lot and grass area in front of the arena," said Harrison. A fair bit of damage was done to both vehicles, the Ford Fusion being "very badly damaged." 

Harrison said three people in the Fusion were taken to the hospital with injuries, and "one of them ended up with a whole pile of stitches in their head from a severe laceration." It appears that the driver of the Fusion, an 80-year old Grand Forks female, failed to yield the right of way. 

RCMP nab thief, multiple charges laid

The other one of "major interest", according to Harrison, occurred on Nov. 28. at 3:40 a.m. an alarm was received from Grand Forks Secondary School. Two constables attended and entered the building with a master key, making their way to the principal's office where they observed a smashed window and open cupboard doors. 

"At that particular time," said Harrison, "they, through the corner of their eye, happened to detect some motion on the door...they opened the door and found the suspect inside, who was found in possession of a bunch of stolen property." 

Subsequently, 27-year-old John Landry of Grand Forks was charged with break-and-entry and possession of stolen property, in addition to possession of break-in instruments and possession of meth amphetamine. 

"The reason he was charged with possession of stolen property," explained Harrison, "wasn't just the property stolen from the school. We also found property on him from the Gospel Chapel. We didn't recover the laptop, but we recovered a hard drive and a bunch of keys." 

When asked if Landry was potentially the same person who committed the recent rash of break-and-enters, Harrison said, "He likely is...he wasn't on the radar for the thefts [before]; but he is now." 

"I'll be honest with you," commented Harrison, "It's very rare that we catch somebody in the process of doing a break-and-enter...that and recovering the property from the Gospel Chapel was a big thing for us."

While the Boundary Sentinel endeavors to report on any files of interest to the community, anything under the Mental Health Act cannot be published.