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CAS Gets Boy After Police Chase

February 1, 2012 permalink

There are not many answers in this story of a high-speed police chase from Fenelon Falls. The one sure part is that children's aid has control of the family's five-year-old boy.

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Family wants answers over 5-year-old boy being on snowmobile without helmet in high-speed police chase on Chemong Lake

A Fenelon Falls family is demanding answers after their five-year-old grandson was involved in a high-speed snowmobile pursuit and then apparently left in the care of a teenager.

Deborah Cascadden is the maternal grandmother of the five-year-old boy riding on a snowmobile that was involved in the Jan. 21 police chase.

The boy was staying with her family that weekend, she said, when the boy’s father, a resident of Alberta, asked to spend time with his son before he returned home.

The family didn’t object. The boy was sent out with his father.

On Sunday Cascadden’s daughter got a call from the children’s aid society. The worker told her that her son had been involved in a police chase and had been in the care of relatives since Jan. 21, Cascadden said.

Peterborough County OPP said officers on snowmobile patrol tried to stop a man driving a snowmobile on Chemong Lake.

Instead of stopping the man drove off, police said. Officers pursued, reaching speeds of 100 km/h. Police said a five-year-old child was riding on the snowmobile during the chase, and neither the child nor the driver were wearing helmets.

The man abandoned his snowmobile, and the child, once he reached Bailey’s Bay Resort. Police said he was arrested after a short struggle with officers.

Cascadden said police have provided them with little information about the incident.

The family wants answers and Cascadden said they’ve been unable to get them.

Why did the OPP embark on a high-speed snowmobile chase across an icy lake, knowing that no one on that snowmobile was wearing a helmet?

Did officers know an unhelmeted child was also on that snowmobile?

Why have no child endangerment charges been laid?

“People get those charges when they leave a child in the car,” Cascadden said.

Adding to their worry was the fact that the boy had been left in the care of a teenager who no one knew particularly well, she said.

“They left our five-year-old grandson in the care of an 18-year-old girl who is not a blood relative,” Cascadden said. “They just left him.

“I don’t get how something like that could happen.”

She didn’t know what, if any, steps police took to ensure the boy was left in adequate care.

Cascadden said the family has been trying to get in touch with the OPP and sort the mess out.

They haven’t had much luck.

And neither did The Examiner.

When inquiries were made OPP Const. Iain McEwan, the detachment’s media relations officer, said he could offer no further information on the incident.

He said it was likely that officers didn’t see the boy on the snowmobile when they began their pursuit.

He pointed out that the boy was seated at the front of the snowmobile, likely hidden behind the man’s body.

McEwan couldn’t speak to what happened to the boy after the arrest was made. He did say the family should contact the detachment directly, rather than going through the media.

Scott Milton McKenzie, 25, was charged with dangerous driving, escaping by flight, resisting arrest and two counts of driving while prohibited. Under the Motorized Snow Vehicle Act he's charged with failing to stop for police, escape by flight, driving a snow vehicle without insurance and driving a snow vehicle without a helmet.

He appeared in court Monday.

Source: Peterborough Examiner

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