A View Royal man suspected of impaired driving tried to elude police and crashed into a swamp Wednesday morning.
A Victoria police canine handler going off duty spotted the a truck being driven erratically near Tillicum Road at about 5 a.m. The vehicle veered onto dead-end Kent Road in an effort to evade police.
A passenger, who wasn’t located, jumped out of the pickup as it was moving. The driver pulled a quick U-turn and sped at the pursuing police vehicle, lost control and crashed into a grassy, wooded area.
The police dog found and nabbed the 19-year-old man in four feet of water. He advised police that he couldn’t swim.
Saanich police found out the truck was stolen in Sooke that night. Sgt. Dean Jantzen said the man wasn’t impaired after all, “he was just driving the stolen truck poorly.”
The View Royal man is well known to police and faces charges of possession of stolen property, possession of break-in instruments and a breach of conditional sentence.
He was scheduled to appear in court by telebail Wednesday.