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Crime
Vernon RCMP investigate two home invasions
VERNON - Police are investigating two recent home invasions that may be connected. Around 7:30 a.m. on Friday, May 8, Vernon RCMP responded to two separate home invasions. In both incidents people entered the residences, one in the 3900 block of 32 Street and one in the 3900 block of 27 Avenue, while the homeowners...
Man accused of killing Armstrong woman returns to court this fall
VERNON - The man accused of killing an Armstrong mother of two will go before a judge for a preliminary inquiry this fall. Logan Scott, 31, of Salmon Arm was charged with manslaughter and theft under $5,000 in August 2014, nine months after Jillian McKinty, 27, was found dead in her Armstrong home. At the...
Jail time for Osoyoos man convicted in drunken hit and run
PENTICTON - An Osoyoos man with an apparent alcohol problem will have plenty of time behind bars to test his sobriety after he was sentenced to jail for an Osoyoos hit and run accident in 2014. Steven Troy Fields, 28, was sentenced today, May 4, after pleading guilty to one count of failure to stop...
Vernon dirt biker reported missing wanted to avoid arrest: Lawyer
VERNON - The Vernon man police and three Search and Rescue organizations scoured the Commonage for last week was afraid to go home because he didn’t want to get arrested, court heard today, April 29. Kyle Macinnes, 25, was reported missing by his worried family after he went for a dirt bike ride in the...
Vernon man admits guilt in car crash: nurse left paralyzed
VERNON - A Vernon man has pleaded guilty to causing a car crash that left a local nurse paralyzed from the neck down. Robin Orcherton, a Vernon nurse and mother, was on her way home from work Dec. 3, 2014 when her car was struck by a blue Jeep. The driver fled the scene and...
Woman charged in connection with Vernon ATM theft
VERNON - She was caught on camera allegedly stealing cash out of someone else’s bank account, and now six months later, she’s been caught by authorities. Glenda Joan Daku, 53, from the North Okanagan has been charged with one count of theft under $5,000 in connection with the October 2014 offence, which was recorded on...
Lumby RCMP continues to report high number of drunk drivers
LUMBY - Lumby residents don’t seem to be getting the message when it comes to drunk driving, says the village’s top cop. Cpl. Henry Proce with the Lumby RCMP detachment says officers are arresting local residents in very high numbers for impaired driving. In the last three weeks, at least six drivers were charged with...
Vernon man sentenced on animal cruelty charges will get to keep his dog
VERNON - An unfortunate case of animal cruelty was laid out in Vernon Provincial Court this week, and it wasn’t just sad for the pet. Brian Jacobson, 47, was charged with causing unnecessary pain or suffering to an animal, failing to provide necessities, and causing an animal to be in distress following an SPCA cruelty...
Stolen Lumby vehicle found scorched and shot up
LUMBY - Police are appealing to the public for tips after a stolen vehicle turned up torched and shot full of bullet holes last week. The vehicle, a silver 2000 Audi, was reported stolen from Catt Avenue in Lumby April 6. Two days later, it was found four kilometres up the Noble Canyon Forest Service...
Mother, son duo arrested in connection with Lumby drug rip
VERNON - A mother and son duo are facing charges after allegedly stealing medical marijuana plants from a licensed grower in Lumby. Lumby RCMP Cpl. Henry Proce says charges have been laid in connection with a March 27 drug rip on Grandview Avenue. “The suspects forcibly broke into a house and stole the marijuana plants...
Lumby man’s offence not so different from his last
LUMBY - It was deja-vu for a North Okanagan cop dealing with an impaired driving case. The officer was patrolling in the Lumby area April 10 around 2 p.m. when he noticed a prohibited driver in a residential neighbourhood, RCMP spokesperson Gord Molendyk says. “Our officer drove up to the vehicle in a marked police...
Man brought into custody after five hour standoff with Vernon RCMP
VERNON - A 70-year-old man was taken into custody Friday morning after a five-hour stand-off. Officers were called to a fourplex in the 4900 block of Old Kamloops Road just before 1 a.m. April 10 for a report of a distraught man, police said this morning. “He’d had a confrontation with a neighbour and then...
Vernon thief caught on video not who victims expected
VERNON - Police are looking into an odd theft committed by what appears to be an unexpected culprit — an elderly woman. Footage captured by a Vernon couple’s surveillance camera shows what looks to be an elderly woman making off with a patio table shortly after 6 a.m. on April 3 in the area of...
Neighbours fight crime with Block Watch program
CENTRAL OKANAGAN - In a world where social media provides almost instantaneous connections, an anti-crime program that relies on email and the telephone for neighbours to stay connected seems almost anachronistic. But that’s the model the Block Watch program still uses in British Columbia and local crime prevention coordinator Duane MacTavish says it is doing...
Vernon teen pulled over for drunk driving before he even has his license
VERNON - A drunk teenager was slapped with an Immediate Roadside Prohibition over the long weekend, and he doesn’t even have his driver’s license yet. The 17-year-old was caught driving erratically in the Kalamalka Road area of Coldstream on Friday, April 3, around 10:30 p.m., RCMP spokesperson Gord Molendyk says. An officer patrolling in the...
Crime spree nets Vernon man more time behind bars
VERNON - A Vernon man says he was denied detox services for the third time shortly before attempting to carjack a woman’s vehicle and breaking into a nearby home. David Arthur Bruno Sammartino, born in 1984, was sentenced in Vernon Provincial Court Wednesday, April 1, on two charges of breaking and entering, and one of...
Osoyoos incidents keep RCMP busy
PENTICTON - An illegal border crossing and two stolen vehicles kept Osoyoos RCMP busy overnight March 30 and throughout the following day in two separate incidents. Police were alerted by the U.S. Border Patrol just before 10 p.m. Monday of three males illegally crossing the U.S. - Canada border near Highway 3 on Anarchist Mountain....
KOOPMANS TRIAL: Accused had no ill will toward shooting victim: Friend
PENTICTON - The last witness in the John Koopmans murder trial said he’d never seen the accused show any ill will towards victim Keith Wharton. Robert Hart, a friend of Koopmans, testified if Koopmans had guns, he was unaware of it, calling him an “even-tempered man” who he had never seen angry. The double murder...
KOOPMANS TRIAL: ‘You were there to settle a score:’ Crown
PENTICTON - Crown Prosecutor Frank Dubenski continued to pummel accused murderer John Koopmans with questions regarding Koopmans’ strange social behaviour the night three people were shot in Princeton. In Koopmans' third day on the stand in his own defence today, March 30, Dubenski demanded to know why he would walk for miles late in the...
Man arrested for powering licensed grow-op with stolen electricity
CHERRYVILLE - Police found something wasn’t quite right at a licensed medical marijuana grow-op in Cherryville. RCMP say officers were already aware of the legal, 1,200 plant operation in the North Fork Road area, but had suspicions the operator was stealing electricity. Police executed a search warrant at the property March 17 and arrested one...
Police investigate second Lumby assault involving group of youths
LUMBY - Police are dealing with a second situation where someone was surrounded and assaulted by young people in Lumby. Cpl. Henry Proce says the most recent case happened March 16 when a patient at the Monashee Mews care home was confronted by several youths at the bus stop on Norris Road. The youths began...
KOOPMANS TRIAL: Crown challenges Koopmans’ story
"YOU KNOW DAMN WELL THERE IS NO .357 THERE — YOU SENT THEM ON A WILD GOOSE CHASE." PENTICTON - Crown Prosecutor Frank Dubenski hammered accused murderer John Ike Koopmans during cross examination today with questions about a missing handgun Koopmans said he disposed of long before a similar weapon was used once kill two...
KOOPMANS TRIAL: Accused is a ‘teddy bear’ trying to help shooting victim: Witness
PENTICTON – The man accused of shooting three people and killing two of them in…
KOOPMANS TRIAL: Police waited nearly three hours to inspect crime scene amid chaos
PENTICTON - Police arriving on scene following a report of a double homicide in Princeton found themselves overwhelmed by a chaotic scene, court was told Wednesday. A police officer who acted as primary investigator for the homicides said he found the suspected murder weapon and produced for the jury today, March 25, photographic evidence that...