VPD arrests chronic offender wanted on Canada-wide warrants

The Vancouver Police Department (VPD) has arrested Raymond Desorcy, 55, a chronic offender wanted on two Canada-wide warrants in connection with a crash that killed a teenager in Vancouver. Police had been looking for him since last December.

After a detailed investigation by the VPD’s Collision Investigation Unit, Desorcy pleaded guilty to dangerous operation of a conveyance causing death in the 2023 crash that killed 18-year-old Dana Oh. He failed to appear for a sentencing hearing in 2025, and a warrant was issued for his arrest.

Just before dawn Thursday, the VPD Fugitive Team found Desorcy as he was leaving a coffee shop near Granville Street and West Georgia Street in downtown Vancouver. Police said he was arrested without incident after an extensive search.

When Desorcy’s guilty plea was entered, the court heard evidence that he was distracted by his cellphone and speeding on Oct. 7, 2023, when he drove through a red light at Granville Street and King Edward Avenue and struck a BMW sedan that was turning left. Oh was in the BMW’s back seat and suffered catastrophic injuries. She could be removed from the vehicle only after responders used the “jaws of life” to take off its side doors. She died in hospital six days later. Another passenger in the BMW suffered serious injuries.

Police allege Desorcy had non-prescription drugs in his possession when he was arrested on Oct. 15, 2026. He has now been charged with breach of a release order and remains in custody awaiting a bail hearing.

Desorcy is subject to a lifetime firearms prohibition and has more than 30 criminal convictions dating to 1989, including impaired driving, assault, break and enter, robbery and uttering threats. He was found guilty of seven counts of robbery in Edmonton in 2014 and was released from prison in 2020.