Early Tuesday morning, starting in the Comox Valley and ending south of Nanaimo, RCMP officers were taken for a long drive to arrest six individuals in connection with a stolen vehicle.  

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Just after 8 a.m., the Comox Valley RCMP was called out to an area near Comox Lake for a report of a stolen vehicle. When officers arrived and tried to engage with the suspects, the driver damaged several police vehicles as it drove away.

Due to the circumstances of the driving damaging police vehicles to get away, an alert was issued to surrounding detachments, police say.

RCMP Air Services was deployed to monitor the suspect vehicle as it went southbound along Highway 19A.

At about 9 a.m., with the assistance of the RCMP Emergency Response Team and Police Dog Services, the stolen truck was located and its occupants were arrested without incident, Mounties say.

Five suspects were arrested at the scene while a sixth person was later located and arrested.

Two stolen vehicles were subsequently located. Six individuals — three men and three women — were arrested.

Three were later released unconditionally, while the other three were held in custody overnight.

They made their first appearance in Nanaimo Provincial Court on Wednesday.

There were no reported injuries, and the investigation is ongoing.

“This was a fine example of a coordinated police response across multiple jurisdictions,” said Insp. Donovan Tait, operations officer for the Nanaimo RCMP.