A woman is recovering and a man is in custody facing a kidnapping charge, among others, after a high-speed chase on the Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk Highway, April 2.
RCMP say they responded to a call of a woman who was forcibly removed from her home in Inuvik and taken away in a vehicle early in the morning.
Police began patrols along the highways. Tuktoyaktuk RCMP spotted the suspect vehicle travelling northbound towards Tuktoyaktuk and attempted to pull it over. The vehicle sped on, and police eventually resorted to a spike bed to pop the suspect vehicle’s tires. The spike bed worked and the vehicle was stopped. The victim was transported to Tuktoyaktuk Health Centre and found to have no injuries. The male driver was arrested.
Kelly MacKenzie Ovayuak, 45, has been charged with the following offences: aggravated assault, assault, break and enter, flight from police, kidnapping, impaired driving and two counts of breach of probation.
The accused is being held in jail for the time being. His next scheduled court appearance in Yellowknife is on Friday April 8, at 9:30 a.m.
“Police take the action of engaging in a vehicle pursuit very serious and only do so in extremely high-risk situations, as was the situation on the ITH on Saturday morning”, said RCMP North District Commander Staff-Sgt. Bruce McGregor. “I am pleased with the outcome of this matter that no one was injured either during the pursuit nor in the deployment of the tire deflation device.”