Victoria police say a man has been taken into custody by the Greater Victoria Emergency Response Team after he barricaded himself into a residential complex and threatened to set fire to the building.
Shortly after 3 a.m. Friday morning, officers responded to a call that a man was breaching court-ordered conditions near Hillside Avenue and Quadra Street.
The man had previously been arrested for charges including assault causing bodily harm, and was later released pending trial under the conditions that he not attend certain geographic areas.
When officers located the man, he was alone and armed with a knife in a suite in the 2800-block of Fifth Street.
He barricaded himself in the building, and told officers he was in possession of gasoline and threatened to set fire to the building.
GVERT, crisis negotiators, additional VicPD officers, Victoria Fire Department firefighters and B.C. Emergency Health Services paramedics attended the scene, and the other suites in the building were evacuated.
The crisis negotiators tried for several hours to get the man to surrender himself into police custody.
Around 7 a.m. when the man threatened to set fire to the building, GVERT officers used “less-lethal tools including noise devices and chemical irritants” and the man exited the suite armed with a knife.
Officers then deployed an “ARWEN less-lethal round” to disarm the man, and took him into custody without additional incident.
VicPD says he was cleared medically and returned to cells where he is being held in custody.
The residents who were evacuated have since been allowed to return home.
Anyone with information about this incident who has yet to speak to officers is asked to call the VicPD Report Desk at (250) 995-7654 extension 1.
CHEK News
