Three people have been charged following two separate incidents in Manitoba over the holiday season, including one that RCMP say resulted in a head-on crash with a police vehicle.

That incident began on the afternoon of Christmas Eve when two women in an SUV refused to stop for a traffic stop by a Portage la Prairie RCMP officer at Eighth Street NW and Sixth Avenue NW at 2:15 p.m., Mounties said in a news release Thursday.

The RCMP said they didn’t pursue the SUV because of public safety concerns, and later located it on Road 70 N heading toward Provincial Road 240, where police positioned a vehicle to put down a spike belt.

But the SUV stopped before hitting the spikes, reversing into a police vehicle behind them before driving forward over the spike belt and crashing head-on into another police vehicle that was arriving.

Both vehicles burst into flames, and police were able to remove the two women inside the SUV before arresting them. The women and one of the officers were treated in hospital, RCMP said.

One woman, 30, was charged with flight from police and resisting or obstructing a police officer. She was released on an undertaking to appear in court at a later date, the release said.

The other, 32, was remanded on charges including assaulting a police officer with a weapon, dangerous operation of a conveyance, theft of a motor vehicle, flight from police and resisting arrest. Both women are from Portage la Prairie, police said.

The second incident happened on Monday, when Nelson House RCMP got a report that a vehicle had failed to stop at the community checkstop going into Nisichawayasihk First Nation, Mounties said in a separate news release Thursday.

Police said they later learned the vehicle had driven through a barricade at the checkstop. Surveillance footage showed it making contact with one First Nations safety officer, who suffered a fractured finger, while narrowly missing another.

The next day, officers arrested a suspect at a home in the community “after a short verbal altercation,” RCMP said.

A 53-year-old was charged with two counts of assaulting a peace or public officer with a weapon causing bodily harm, dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing bodily harm, dangerous operation of a motor vehicle and resisting or obstructing a peace officer.

The resident of Thompson, Man., was released on a release order, RCMP said.