'They just cleaned it out': Bonnyville man run over by thieves stealing from family farm
For weeks, Rob Blanchard and his family found themselves too late to catch thieves who were stealing things from their rural property near Bonnyville, Alta.
When Blanchard and his cousin drove up to the property last Saturday, they saw two strangers in the barn, loading some of the family's belongings into a pair of pickup trucks.
Blanchard, who was blocking an exit for the thieves, found himself facing one of the trucks.
It barrelled toward him and hit him. The collision sent Blanchard over the front of the truck, his head hitting a side mirror before he fell under the rear wheels.
The wheels rolled over his legs and back. Blanchard was left with a cracked pelvis, a concussion and compressed vertebrae.
He's out of the hospital now, but he said he's still feeling spasms of pain.
"I can still feel the wheels spinning as they went over top of me," he said in an interview, adding he's felt uncomfortable even stepping in front of any car ever since last weekend.
RCMP confirmed they're investigating the case and have asked the public for any information they can provide.
On the day he was run over, Rob Blanchard and his cousin Rick Blanchard had gone to the property to build gates to better protect it.
The family has known for weeks about ongoing thefts from their barn and farmhouse on a quarter section of land about a kilometre outside of Bonnyville. No one lives on the property but appliances and building supplies were stored inside.
Regularly since late January, the Blanchards have discovered items missing, doors left open, unfamiliar tracks and other signs someone had been on the property since they last visited.
Kitchen cupboards, power tools, building supplies, a washer and dryer, a bathtub and a grandfather clock were among the stolen items, the cousins said.
"They just cleaned it out. I don't know how they got so comfortable in there," Rick Blanchard said.
"They took anything and everything that they could sell … They were stripping the place. There's so much stuff that's gone missing."
The cousins have heard their story isn't an isolated incident, and that other neighbouring farmers have been victims of theft as well. Rick Blanchard said he worries about the danger this poses to residents after seeing what happened to his cousin.
"The next guy could go under the front end instead of just the back tire … [Rob] would probably be dead if he went under the front."
Rick Blanchard wrote a Facebook post about the incident, prompting an outpouring of support from friends and family, along with tips from people who had seen some of what had been stolen up for sale around the Bonnyville area.
RCMP said there were 401 property crimes last year in the Municipal District of Bonnyville, down slightly from 425 in 2018.
A 2019 Statistics Canada report showed crime was 38 per cent higher in rural Alberta than in urban areas as of 2017.
Concerns about rural crime have reached Bonnyville council too. Last November, councillors voted to apply to Alberta Justice for three more RCMP officers to create a regional crime reduction unit to tackle rural crime in their district.
Greg Sawchuk, reeve of the Municipal District of Bonnyville, said he hears concerns about rural crime from residents. He has asked the provincial government to give local peace officers more authority to help in crime prevention.
Rob Blanchard said he's heard from other people around Bonnyville about crime in the region, but he said not enough people report crimes to police themselves.
He hopes with more reporting, more can be done to track and respond to the problem.
"If somebody gets a jerry can stolen out of their yard, it should be reported because it's just going to lead to bigger and badder things," Blanchard said.
"The people in Bonnyville should speak up more, because a lot of times they just keep quiet."
