Date: Monday, August 23, 2021
Files: 21-33921
Victoria, BC – Patrol officers, working with the Greater Victoria Emergency Response Team (GVERT), apprehended a man on Saturday evening after he made several threats towards staff at a local business and barricaded himself in a multi-unit residential building in Victoria.
At approximately 2 p.m. on Friday, August 20th, Patrol officers received a report that a man had entered a business in the 700-block of Finlayson Street and threatened to harm the employees. The man then left the store and repeatedly phoned the business to make threats against staff and the building.
Officers investigated to determine the identity and location of the man. The following day, on Saturday, August 21st, the man repeatedly called 911 throughout the day to make threats toward call takers.
Officers identified the man and located him in a suite in a multi-unit residential building in the 1800-block of Quadra Street. The man refused to communicate with officers and barricaded himself inside a suite at that location. The Greater Victoria Emergency Response Team (GVERT), including Crisis Negotiators were deployed to the scene and worked for several hours to the negotiate a surrender with the man. However, the man refused to communicate with police.
At approximately 11 p.m. GVERT officers deployed an irritant gas into the suite and the man surrendered without further incident. Officers transported the man to hospital for a mental health assessment. No one was physically injured in this incident.
This file remains under investigation.
If you have information about this incident and have not spoken with investigators, please call our non-emergency line at (250) 995-7654. To report what you know anonymously, please call Greater Victoria Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.
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