Police name hit-and-run suspect, highway checkpoints taken down

Police named the suspected driver of a vehicle that struck a Marathon construction worker Monday.

Marathon detachment OPP officers say 23-year-old Ibrahim Sendagire, of Edmonton, was allegedly behind the wheel of the car that collided with 23-year-old Jake Dumas on Highway 17 west of Marathon.

Paramedics rushed Dumas, who is the son of the town's Mayor Rick Dumas, to the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre. He is now listed in stable condition.

Police searched the area, but couldn’t find the suspect who fled on foot into the nearby bush.

"We’re concerned for his safety," OPP Const. Peter Bertin said about the suspect on Wednesday.

"His vehicle collided with the construction worker and he collided with a rock cut. Did he injure himself in the accident too and then run off into the bush? Does he have any injuries we don’t know about?"

Bertin said they discovered Sendagire’s identity after they contacted the owner of the car in Alberta.

Police set up roadblocks earlier this week, but have since taken them down. Bertin said they are still patrolling the area and asking drivers not to pick up hitchhikers.

"It’s hard to tell if he’s still in the area because the bush is so thick," he said.


"There are not a lot of alternate routes because of the highway and the railway tracks.

“There might be other options for him to just hunker down in the bush."

Police describe the suspect as standing about six-feet-tall. He is a heavy-set, black man with dark hair. He wore a dark blue shirt and bluejeans at the time of the incident.