A man was arrested Saturday night after an hours-long barricade at a multi-unit residential building in Victoria.
Victoria police responded after receiving a report about 2 p.m. Friday that a man had entered a business in the 700-block of Finlayson Street, near Mayfair mall, and threatened to harm the employees. He then left the store and made repeated threatening calls against the staff and the building.
On Saturday, the man phoned 911 numerous times and made threats to the call takers.
Officers identified the man and tracked him down at a building in the 1800-block of Quadra, not far from the police department on Caledonia Avenue. He would not communicate with officers and barricaded himself inside a suite.
The Greater Victoria Emergency Response Team, including crisis negotiators, tried for several hours to negotiate a surrender.
At about 11 p.m., response team members deployed an “irritant gas” in the suite and the man gave up. He was taken to hospital for a mental-health assessment.
No injuries were reported.
