By Alicia Draus @CHATTVadraus

Medicine Hat Police Issue Arrest Warrant for Ontario Teen

May 25, 2016 | 5:42 PM

MEDICINE HAT:  An arrest warrant has been issued for a teenager in Ontario in relation to threatening text messages sent to students at high schools in Medicine Hat back in March.

Four students were named specifically in the text messages. The threats prompted McCoy High to close for a day and all other schools in the city were in lock down as a precaution.

Police have been investigating the incident and have now issued an arrest warrant for a 17 year old teen in Elliot Lake Ontario.

According to Police the case relied heavily on tracking online data. The texts were found to have originated from an online server. In addition to the texts, threatening messages were also sent through a Facebook account.

Police say this Facebook account lead them to Saskatchewan but the account being used for the threats was a copy of an existing account.

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“This young man was not aware that his Facebook account was being used to someone else’s advantage,” says Staff Sgt. Trevor Humphries.

“The family that we had contact with was very accommodating and they helped progress this investigation to the point where we have warrants for somebody’s arrest now.”

With the help of the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) an arrest warrant was issued for an Elliot Lake home. Computers and other electronics were seized and sent to Medicine Hat Police for further investigation.

On May 20 Police issued an Alberta radius arrest warrant for a 17 year old female from Elliot Lake Ontario.

The arrest warrants issued were for:
1. Criminal Harrassment (x3)
2. Uttering Threats (x3)
3. Identity Fraud (x2)
4. Public Mischief

However because the teen resides in Ontario she may not be charged.

“Outside of the province requires consent of the crown prosecutor,” says Humphries.

“In this case we were authorized for the Alberta radius but we do not have authorization to extend the radius to Ontario.”

The female was charged with a similar incident in 2015 and was on bail at the time. Restrictions of her bail included no use of social media. The OPP have charged her for breach of bail.

The Crown referred to the criminal code to explain why the warrant was only issued for Alberta.

On the Alberta Justice Department’s website there are a number of criteria for deciding whether or not to extend an arrest warrant.

a. the likelihood that the evidence is still available;
b. the likelihood that the prisoner will be retained in custody if returned;
c. the alternative of a waiver of the charges to the other province for a guilty plea;
d. the alternative of release by a Justice of the Peace in the other province on the condition that the prisoner appear in the appropriate Alberta court location; and
e. whether the costs to the public are such that the expenditure of public money to return the prisoner would be in the public interest.

The Crown refused to comment specifically on which criteria this case failed to meet and why the arrest warrant could not be extended to Ontario.