RCMP nab naked driver

Photo: Kate Bouey

UPDATE: 5:10 p.m.

RCMP say a naked man, nabbed by officers in the downtown after crashing his vehicle into a storefront, has been transported to hospital for an assessment of his medical condition.

The man crashed his 1996 Jeep Cherokee SUV into The Kush organic clothing and cosmetics store on 31st Street Friday afternoon, before climbing naked out of the vehicle and walking down 30th Avenue “dressed only in his birthday suit,” described Cpl. Dan Moskaluk, RCMP spokesperson.

Police “caught him not too far away,” he added.

Officers at the scene were told by eye witnesses that the naked man tried to rob the store and attempted twice to carjack other vehicles in order to flee the area.

“Albeit a bizarre set of circumstances. We are thankful that no one was injured," stated Moskaluk.

UPDATE: 4:10 p.m.

The RCMP are reported to have arrested a naked man after he left the scene of a vehicle crash into a storefront in the downtown.

“Six cruisers pulled up (on 35th Street). They subdued him. They arrested him,” says the eye witness. “They put a blanket on him.”

Before that, the driver was spotted by shoppers striding naked down 30th Avenue toward Safeway.

He also attacked another man coming out of a shop but was pulled off, according to the eye witness.

A call to the RCMP has not been returned.

Emergency crews are on scene at a bizarre crash on 31st Street in downtown Vernon. 

An eye-witness says a man in his 40s appeared to purposely ram his Jeep Cherokee into The Kush, an organic clothing and cosmetics store shortly before 3 p.m. That's after his vehicle first slammed into a lamp post on the opposite side of the street, according to Alex Lawson who was on the street at the time.

"The guy just revved his engine and drove straight into The Kush," says Lawson, standing amid the brick and glass debris littering the sidewalk and street behind Nolan's Pharmacy. Just before the accident, the driver had been in a confrontation with staff at the store and at the MMJ marijuana dispensary next door, Lawson says.

The short block has been sealed at both ends.

Witnesses say the man was naked when he got out of his vehicle and was last seen walking toward 30th Avenue. 

Significant damage has been caused to the shop. The front wall on one side is gone and the vehicle is sitting two metres inside the store.

"I thought he was coming through this window," says Charline Haigh, owner of It's Bath Time, a dog grooming parlour across the street when the jeep first hit the lamp post outside her shop. "Then he veered straight into The Kush."