Getaway car, far right, is recovered from bushes. The shot-out Jllindow ofthe police car clearly shows the daugcr of the chase.
1975
BANK ROBBERY ENDS IN BULLET-RIDDEN CHASE
infra-red sightlines, and a fixed wing aircraft. Their vigilance paid off at dawn when two men- one armed with a loaded Luger pistol- were arrested in the Dartmoor subdivision near the intersection of Mathewson and Gloucester streets. Cpl. Bruce Barclay Carrie was on his first day at the job at the Coquitlam detachment '"vhen he became involved with this incident. Carrie recalls that morning. As a recruit, he was working with a trainer who was assigned to look after him. They had just left the police office on Christmas Way and were travelling by car on the Barnet when the call came in that there was a problem at the bank. "Essentially the information we had at the time was that the bank manager had begtm his way across to work and had noticed some staff inside and there was a look about some of the staff which made him concerned, so he backed off and phoned the office," Carrie says. Carrie, who had been driving, stopped the car tO change places with the trainer. "We certainly didn't get very far along, just into Port Moody when things became extremely hectic. You could tell from radio conversations there was an extreme emergency, shouting about shots being fired and a high-speed chase underwar." He continues: "I recall during the course of the radio conversation that there were indications that maybe there was a hostage inside the car, people just weren't sure. I recall lots of radio conversations with regard to staying back, not going tO close to them and I can recall hearing the callout where they were going at the time. One person in particular, a fellow by the name of Brian Tuckey, he was taking control of what was becoming a high-speed chase and shootout." At the corner of St. John's and Gatensbury, Carrie saw the getaway car was coming towards their vehicle. "There was by now a great number of police cars, and we had crossed the intersection. I recall thinking
Nineteen years after Coquitlam 's famous "Royal Bank shootout," a similar event occurred at the Austin and Marmont branch of the Bank of Montreal. On March 30, 1975, bank employees arriving for ,,·ork in the morning were mer by two gunmen who forced them into the building. The gunmen were about to handcuff them when police arrived. A third gang member, acting as a lookout, opened fire on the police in the parking lot and then jumped into a getaway car driven by a fourth accomplice. As police took off in pursuit, the two holdup men still in the bank prepared to escape, taking the assistant bank manager as hostage. The manager was able to break free , and the two bandits took off. Their abandoned car was found in Port Coquitlam, and they were subsequently arrested in Quebec several weeks later. Meanwhile, the first getaway car was leading fc>Ltr police cars on a wild bullet-ridden chase through Coquitlam 's residential streets into Port Moody. The suspectS would dri\·e until they were our of sight and then wait in ambush for police cars. This tactic disabled several police cars during the chase. As the getaway vehicle attempted to run a road block in Port Moody, d1e bandits released a barrage of shots from an automatic rifle. Const. Dennis Fvculak was hit in the chest by bullet fragments, and Const. Robert EUergodt was injured when hit by metal &agmtnts from his car door. Both police officers recoYered. The suspects abandoned their car, which set off an extensive search of the area around Riverview Hospital. The men were spotted moving along Colony Farm Road. More than 70 police officers staged an all -night manhunt, using tracker dogs, helicopters, rifles with
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