[Merged] is this the same Ryan O'Connor that owns Find-A-Car?

Pair in Porsche chase down man accused of drunk driving, sex assault


Spezza’s brother, roommate stay on driver’s tail until police arrive


By Vito Pilieci


OTTAWA — Two Ottawa men, including the brother of Ottawa Senators star Jason Spezza, chased a car at speeds exceeding 170 km/h Friday night trying to stop a man now accused of assaulting a young woman who jumped in front of their vehicle screaming for help.


According to Ryan O’Connor, the driver of the car, the whole incident played out like an action movie.


O’Connor and his roommate, Matt Spezza, were running late for the Kim Mitchell concert at the Richmond Fair and were on their way to the fairgrounds around 11 p.m. when they realized they left their tickets at home. The two were riding in O’Connor’s 2006 Porsche 997.


Realizing the concert would begin any minute, O’Connor turned his car around and floored it, heading east along Fallowfield Road.


He was approaching Moodie Drive when he said a woman suddenly jumped in front of his car, waving her arms and screaming incoherently.


O’Connor slammed on the brakes.


“I almost hit this person on the road, I missed her by a foot. I thought, ‘This person is drunk. I have to go back’,” O’Connor said.


He and Spezza jumped out of the car to find the woman, whom police said is in her early 20s, clutching a cellphone and screaming to 911 dispatchers she been sexually assaulted.


“She was hysterical, saying this guy tried to kill her. He tried choking her out and she got out of the car. She said he had been drinking,” O’Connor said.


The woman pointed to a late-model navy blue Pontiac Wave that was pulled over on the westbound side of Fallowfield nearby, saying it belonged to her attacker. She said the driver was an acquaintance who was giving her a ride when he stopped and demanded sexual favours.


“We hear some girl screaming, ‘He’s trying to kill me,’ ” said Spezza. “I look and the guy starts yelling, ‘I am going put you in the corn field.’ ”


After yelling some obscenities at the woman, the driver of the Pontiac took off, pulling a U-turn and heading east along Fallowfield.


O’Connor and Spezza asked the distraught woman to get into the Porsche. O’Connor took her cellphone and began talking to dispatchers while he pursued the fleeing car.


“I took the phone away because she was hysterical,” O’Connor said.


The Porsche, which has more than 480 horsepower and a top speed of 310 kilometres per hour, quickly caught up to the outmatched Pontiac. At times, the two cars were travelling in excess of 170 kilometres an hour, both men said.


O’Connor said he read the licence plate to dispatchers, who never asked the driver to break off his high-speed pursuit with the alleged assailant.


“I am surprised they didn’t tell me to do that,” he said. “I think they wanted to get this guy.”


The two cars raced to Eagleson Road, where they turned and headed north, passing cars, and narrowly missing several others.


“We are talking almost having head-on (collisions) with cars. Passing cars on the shoulder and I am on the phone with 911,” O’Connor said. “I am describing all of this to dispatch. I’m saying, ‘We are doing 160 and we are coming up to Fallowfield. We are blowing the red light here.’ ”


The chase led to the parking lot of the Real Canadian Superstore at 760 Eagleson Rd., where the driver of the Pontiac briefly tried to lose O’Connor, before heading back out to Eagleson, heading south to Hope Side Road, where he sped through several red lights and stop signs.


Hope Side Road is heavily populated with houses, stores and schools on either side.


The pair travelled east along Hope before coming to Richmond Road, where the fleeing vehicle again tried to lose O’Connor by pulling into the parking lot of a McDonald’s on the northeast corner of the intersection.


In his attempt, he boxed himself in, allowing Spezza to quickly jump out of the Porsche and run toward the driver’s-side window.


“I tried punching through his window,” Spezza said. “I tried, but he sped up. I was just trying to get him out of the car and off the road before he killed somebody.”


Running from Spezza, the driver headed the wrong way through the McDonald’s drive-thru. He exited the parking lot and turned south onto Richmond Road. The chase continued with O’Connor relaying all of the information to police dispatchers over the cellphone.


“I had the phone to my ear the whole time,” he said. “It was like time was standing still and we were like, ‘Where are the cops?’ This had gone on for like 15 or 20 minutes.”


The Pontiac driver drove straight through a red light at Richmond Road and Fallowfield Road before heading east toward Highway 416. He got on the highway heading south.


It was at this point, thanks to information from O’Connor, that police ended the chase by setting up a roadblock on the highway just north of the Bankfield Road exit.


“They had to block him in; there were like 20 cruisers,” Spezza said. “He was drunk, way over the limit and had a bottle of tequila in the back.”


O’Connor said the police arrested the driver of the Pontiac before congratulating him and Spezza on risking their lives and O’Connor’s prized Porsche to pursue the suspect.


“The cops thanked me. They said, ‘Nobody would have taken the time,’ ” O’Connor said.


Late Saturday, the Ottawa police issued a press release to announce the arrest of a Brockville man, who has been charged with sexual assault, forcible confinement, uttering death threats, dangerous driving, impaired operation of a motor vehicle, and driving a vehicle with more than 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood.


Sources confirmed the arrest was in connection with Friday’s incident, but the press release makes no mention of the high-speed chase, saying only that “the driver was located and arrested.”


Earlier in the day, Sgt. Tracy Butler, with the Ottawa police sexual assault and child abuse unit, said she does not advise civilians to attempt high-speed chases and could not say whether O’Connor would be facing charges for his part in the chase, or why police dispatch would not have instructed O’Connor to pull over and stop chasing the subject.


“We’ll comment once all of the information is together,” Butler said. “There is a lot of stuff that has to be gone through.”


The suspect, who was not named, was held in custody and is to appear in court today.


© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

There are going to be dozens of posts about how O'Connor should have been charged with stunt driving. :-)

O'Connor should have been charged with stunt driving.

Ryan O'Connor? That's seriously his name?

Did he look like this?

seriously, what gives him the right to drive crazy just because he is after somebody who the police would have cought on their own... eventually

Two Ottawa men's decision to chase a car through residential roads at speeds exceeding 170 km/h to catch a suspected rapist has sparked a debate as to how far citizens should go when trying to help police.

Ryan O'Connor and his roommate, Matt Spezza, brother of Ottawa Senators star Jason Spezza, were driving to a Kim Mitchell concert around 11 p.m. Friday when they realized they forgot their tickets at home.

O'Connor, 33, turned his 2008 Porsche 997 around and they began heading back. As they drove down a deserted rural road, a woman jumped in front of the car.

"I hit the brakes. We were lucky we didn't hit her," said O'Connor. "She was screaming and crying, just hysterical. She pointed at this car and said, `That guy in the car tried to kill me.'"

The woman, holding a cell phone with a 911 dispatcher on the other end, said the attacker had given her a lift but then pulled over and demanded sexual favours.

The men then watched the alleged attacker take off in a blue Pontiac Wave.

Spezza told the distressed woman to get into back of the Porsche. Meanwhile, O'Connor grabbed her phone and spoke with the dispatcher as he chased the suspect's car.

Despite the two cars reaching speeds of over 170 km/h, the dispatcher didn't tell the men to stop the pursuit, confirmed Ottawa Police Chief Vern White.

"Our operator did not do what he should have done .... Thank God nothing happened," he said.

White said the department has no policy on citizen pursuits, adding that common sense should always prevail.

"If this had been a police pursuit, we would have stopped it. You don't do that with a victim in the back seat," he said.

The chase lasted about 20 minutes, O'Connor said, and took the two cars through several residential roads and parking lots. After driving the wrong way through a MacDonald's drive-thru, the suspect turned onto Hwy. 416, where a police barricade stopped him.

Canadian media outlets and blogs are abuzz with the story, with some hailing the men as heroes while others are denouncing them as reckless cowboys.

"When they put her in the back of the car, that was heroism," White said. "What happened after wasn't."

He said Spezza or O'Connor won't be charged because they were under police supervision at the time.

In Toronto, police dispatchers have a policy to "discourage" a citizen from doing anything dangerous when pursuing a potential criminal - be it following someone with a gun or chasing a car at high-speeds, said Supt. Mark Fenton.

"When trying to apprehend somebody at those speeds, you could easily lose control and kill somebody totally innocent," he said.

Despite the criticism, O'Connor said he is happy he and Spezza did what they did.

"There's two sides to every story. I can see their point: We're very lucky we didn't have a head-on (collision). But if we did nothing, people would have said, `you should have followed him.' It's lose-lose," he said.

SOURCE:
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/699171

<rant>

Will they get charged for street racing and stunting? Of course not, these guys are heroes right?

I hate how the law does not apply equally...

</rant>

Two questions:
1. Pontiac wave going above 170km/h? Seriously?
2. 20 min for a porsche to catch up with a wave? 20min and no cops barricading?

Originally Posted by zydus

<rant>

Will they get charged for street racing and stunting? Of course not, these guys are heroes right?

I hate how the law does not apply equally...

</rant>

Two questions:
1. Pontiac wave going above 170km/h? Seriously?
2. 20 min for a porsche to catch up with a wave? 20min and no cops barricading?

Pretty sure a Wave can do more than 170 =.=

Didn't read? The chase lasted for 20min.. doesn't mean it took 20min to catchup to the Vibe. I guess he just followed the Vibe and updated the police with his location. I don't think he was gonna try and PIT-manuver the Vibe with his Porsche.

LOL Pontaic Wave try to outrun a 997... Epic Fail...

rapist 0 porsche 1



i finally know why the cops are driving so fast all the time now... there's a lot of rapists to catch.

Originally Posted by VorteC

Pretty sure a Wave can do more than 170 =.=

Didn't read? The chase lasted for 20min.. doesn't mean it took 20min to catchup to the Vibe. I guess he just followed the Vibe and updated the police with his location. I don't think he was gonna try and PIT-manuver the Vibe with his Porsche.

Sorry what I meant was this; by the time the pontiac reaches 170km/h the prosche would be all over its ass. At this time they could report the license plate, location and then take the victim to the hospital etc.

Another source: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/...203/story.html

Excerpts from above source:

"I am surprised they didn't tell me to do that (end the chase)," O'Connor said. "I think they wanted to get this guy."

The two cars raced, passing cars, and narrowly missing several others.

"We are talking, almost having head-on (collisions) with cars. Passing cars on the shoulder and I am on the phone with 911," O'Connor said. "I am describing all of this to dispatch. I'm saying, 'We are doing 160. We are blowing the red light here."

Police eventually ended the chase by setting up a roadblock.

I wonder what would have happened if the porsche hit a pedestrian or was involved in a crash?

But i'm not supposed to ask "What if..." right?

Interesting comment from Toronto Star comments section:

If they'd chased him down on foot and beat the crap out of him, I'm sure they'd be charged with assault. Seems it worked out better this way.

LOL

This


vs.

This

I wonder what was going through the woman's mind. Probably.. I hope these guys kill him.

Either way, it's good that everything worked out.

Does anyone know if Spezza's brother plays hockey as well or was the 997 a gift from his NHL sibling?

While these "citizens" may not be prosecuted, they should be reprimanded. Totally reckless. Heroes? give me a break!

The 911 dispatcher should have been disciplined as well, for not holding back some CLEARLY dangerous behaviour. This is also the reason why that reckless driver is not charged: he's under "police supervision".

170? The original story in the Ottawa Citizen said 160...

If another newspaper picks it up, it'll become 180...