A Thorndale man says he’s bewildered at how police boundaries and bureaucracy stalled recovery of his stolen pickup, whose location he tracked for hours on an app.
Paul Stubbens said London police didn’t respond to his pleas for help until he took to social media to tell them he knew where the stolen truck was.
“I lost faith in the system and even humanity for a couple days,” Stubbens said, adding he’s a police supporter. “It felt like I was the only person who felt there was a wrong happening and nobody seemed to make it right.
“It was over-the-top ridiculous.”
Stubbens’ ordeal began July 12 when he called 911 after his red 2021 Ford F-150 vanished from the driveway of his Thorndale home about 9:15 a.m.
He spoke to Oxford OPP and, using a location app for his vehicle, gave an officer a Woodstock address to which he’d traced the pickup.
“The OPP were pretty helpful and within the next 45 minutes, I was giving them updates on my moving truck” that he tracked to Thamesford, he said. “I headed out there as well.”
Stubbens, driving his wife’s vehicle, kept updating OPP officers, who were very close to catching up with the pickup when their cruisers hit London city limits on Gore Road.
“The OPP had the guy, then they called them off. They just stopped; three cars just turned around,” Stubbens said. “I said: ‘You got to be kidding me, we’ve got this guy.’ ”
Next, Stubbens spoke to a London police dispatcher, who told him the force had no one available to help recover his truck.
By then, the truck stopped for several minutes at an address off the city’s Veterans Memorial Parkway.
Against police advice, Stubbens went to the Brewer’s Retail Distribution Centre at 280 Sovereign Rd., where he spotted his stolen truck.
“My adrenalin was going 100 per cent,” he said. “I said: ‘Look, he’s here. He’s in the truck. Come here, He’s begging to be arrested.’ ”
The dispatcher again said, “Sorry, we don’t have anyone available,” and told him to leave the scene.
Minutes later, the truck “sped out like NASCAR, (it) took a turn on two wheels,” Stubbens said.
Dispatch told him not to worry because insurance would cover any damage, he said.
“I thought, ‘Am I the only one thinking there is a crime going on?’ ” Stubbens said.
It wasn’t until he took to Twitter to describe his plight that a London police officer contacted him, he said.
“Within two minutes, I get a phone call saying: ‘I’m sending a vehicle out,’ ” he said. “All of a sudden, I got three police cars.”
Police eventually found the truck abandoned on Langmuir Avenue, southeast of Highbury Avenue and Florence Street, Stubbens said.
London police wouldn’t comment further because it was a OPP probe.
Derek Rogers, a spokesperson for West Region OPP, said the investigation is ongoing and officers decided not to pursue the suspect into London due to safety concerns.
“This is called suspect pursuit apprehension, and when there is a matter proceeding, especially into a city like London where there is a lot of people and vehicular traffic, you have to weigh safety concerns,” he said. “That’s a matter where we would weigh the risk to the public in terms of whether or not we continue to pursue any suspect who is not pulling over.”
The OPP “does not recommend an individual put themselves at considerable personal risk by following a stolen vehicle,” Rogers said.
“Thieves can respond in dangerous and unpredictable ways that can lead to injury to the victim or another member of the public. You have no way of knowing if the individual involved could attempt to confront you and become violent.”
HRivers@postmedia.com
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