Police collared a Manitoba farmer last week after lives were said to be endangered through reckless use of a tractor.
Nicolas Ulrich Vogel, 46, of La Broquerie was arrested and charged with one count of mischief endangering life, two counts of dangerous driving and one count of mischief not exceeding $5,000.
The charges came after a family was forced to flee from an oncoming tractor which narrowly missed a pregnant mother and her three young children.
The family from St. Anne, Man., was having a picnic July 18 when a John Deere tractor drove onto their land and came toward them. The driver of the tractor shouted threats and obscenities before moving off through a nearby field.
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The tractor operator was followed to his home five kilometres away by the picnicking woman’s husband and another man.
A confrontation ensued at Vogel’s farm. It’s alleged that Vogel slammed a tractor into the truck carrying the two men. The men then fled Vogel’s farm and called police.
Steinbach RCMP said they had received an unrelated complaint a day earlier about a farmer who was driving dangerously. A woman told police she was forced into the ditch by an oncoming tractor with harrows. She tried to reverse away from the tractor to avoid a collision.
“He was kind of going right at her as fast as the tractor would go,” said Const. Pat Olson.
The incident prompted an additional charge of dangerous driving against Vogel.
