A Manitoba man has been arrested for allegedly stealing a taxi after refusing to pay the fare, then briefly evading police before driving himself to the parking lot of an RCMP detachment, where he damaged a wheelchair ramp, Mounties say.

RCMP got a report about the stolen cab in Dauphin, Man., about 250 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, just after 5 a.m. on Saturday.

They were told a man got into the taxi and was driven to a hotel in Dauphin, where he refused to pay his fare.

The driver of the cab then got out and asked the man to get out, too — but instead, the man jumped into the front seat and drove away, RCMP said in a news release on Tuesday.

Patrolling officers found the vehicle at 5:30 a.m., but the driver refused to pull over and sped away, police said.

Ten minutes later, officers saw the taxi stopped in the Dauphin RCMP parking lot, but as police approached, the vehicle sped away again.

The cab returned to the detachment parking lot a short time later and was boxed in by officers before the man was taken into custody, the news release said.

The cab collided with the detachment’s wheelchair ramp during the incident, which caused significant damage to the ramp and vehicle, police said.

A 32-year-old man was charged with theft of a vehicle, flight from a peace officer and two counts of mischief over $5,000, the news release said. He remains in custody.