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 (Left: Royal Canadian Mounted Police Officers making some friends)
It doesn’t matter if you’re a cop or a ball player, one thing they can all agree on is that rookies are largely useless. That’s until some kid, still wet behind the ears, wins the game with a buzzer-beater or nabs a serious bad guy in his or her first season with the team.
A rookie with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is getting more than a few pats on the back after helping to capture a U.S. fugitive killer and three-time escapee who has spent two decades dodging and taunting law enforcement. Mountie Stephane Gagnon was out of the RCMP’s training academy just six weeks when he tackled and arrested Richard McNair after an attempted traffic stop and foot chase in Campbellton, New Brunswick, about 100 miles north of the U.S.-Canada border, Inspector Roland Wells told the Associated Press.
McNair told the young officer that he didn’t know what he had. “You have captured a big fish here — you guys will be on the news tonight.” “I don’t know if he realizes the significance of the arrest,” Wells told reporters. “There are those that go 20 to 30 years without making a high-profile arrest.” “I only did my job,” Gagnon said.
McNair, 48, was convicted of killing Jerome Theis in 1987 during a burglary at a Minot grain elevator in North Dakota. Richard Kitzman, an elevator employee, was shot three times but survived. McNair’s crimes got him a life sentence. But the killer had a knack for busting out. His escapes landed him on a list of the nation’s 15 most wanted criminals. Gagnon was on patrol with training officer Nelson Levesque when the two men noticed McNair in a stolen van. McNair sped away in the van when the officers attempted to pull him over.
McNair made a big mistake and turned down a street that was a dead end, the officers said. The suspect then fled the vehicle on foot and was tackled by Gagnon after a quarter mile. McNair, determined not to go back to jail, resisted being handcuffed but Gagnon applied pressure points to make him comply, Wells said.
“At that time we didn’t know who he was – we thought he may have been a suspect in tobacco smuggling or drug smuggling.” McNair initially told the officers his true identity but later signed his fingerprints with an alias, “Troy Snyder,” Wells said. Wells added that authorities had positively identified McNair through fingerprints about an hour after his arrest. Over the years, law enforcement officers have described McNair as smart and charismatic.
McNair is a former military police officer and police informant. “He’s quite an interesting guy to deal with,” Wells said. “He told me, ‘The officers are treating me in a professional manner.’” In February 1988, McNair used a tube of lip balm to grease up his hand and slip out of handcuffs at the Minot police station. He was captured after he jumped from the third floor of a building near a Minot hospital. Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites       
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