SIRT clears RCMP in pursuit that left escaped inmate with broken wrist
Kevin Edward Clarke-McNeil, 34, was captured by RCMP near Sheet Harbour, N.S.
Nova Scotia's police watchdog has cleared the Mounties of any wrongdoing in a chase in June that left an escaped inmate with a broken wrist.
Kevin Edward Clarke-McNeil, 34, escaped from the Northeast Nova Scotia Correctional Facility in Pictou County.
He managed to evade police for several hours, until RCMP in Guysborough received a report of a suspicious fire in a remote location. That was followed by a report of someone driving an ATV erratically on a road near the fire. Police also received a report of a stolen ATV.
Clarke-McNeil was arrested, after a vehicle chase, on the MacDonald Cove Road, east of Sheet Harbour, about 100 kilometres south of the jail.
During the course of the chase, the bumper of a police car struck the ATV, causing it to veer off the road and roll over, according to a report Tuesday from the Serious Incident Response Team. That's when Clarke-McNeil broke his wrist.
Clarke-McNeil is one of several inmates facing charges of attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder for an attack on an inmate at another provincial jail, the Central Nova Scotia Correctional Facility in Dartmouth.
Clarke-McNeil was transferred out of that jail after that attack and moved to Pictou. His escape from the Pictou jail prompted a provincewide alert.
The head of the Serious Incident Response Team, Felix Cacchione, said given that alert, the seriousness of the charges and the way Clarke-McNeil was behaving as he drove the stolen ATV, the RCMP were justified in the amount of force they used to stop and arrest him.