A member of the Medicine Hat Police Service walks away from a house Sunday afternoon after an altercation on 5 St. NW. -- NEWS PHOTO MO CRANKER
Medicine Hat News
One man is in custody and is facing a number of charges after a standoff Saturday on 5 St. NW with the Medicine Hat Police Service.
The incident began Saturday when the man fled from police on a motorcycle, and managed to get away from police pursuit.
“We were looking for the suspect on outstanding warrants and encountered him Saturday while he was on a motorcycle,”said Staff Sgt. Kelsey Fraser. “This was in the south end of the city, and when we made contact with him, he immediately fled from police. He evaded our police car and drove dangerously to a residence in the city’s northwest, in the Riverside area. We then moved in today (Sunday) to arrest the man.”
When police arrived at the house on Fifth Street NW Sunday, the man was with a woman he was not legally allowed to be with.
“The female in question here was actually a victim of domestic abuse from this man,” said Fraser. “The male was on release conditions to have no contact at all with this woman. From that, we also received intel that he recently had possession of firearms.
“Based off of all of that, we decided to do a door knock and requested that he turn himself into police. He refused and told us to get a warrant. We received a warrant from Calgary to enter the house, but based off his history we decided to call in the tactical team to help control the situation.”
The tactical team arrived before 3 p.m, set up containment around the house and began negotiating with the man from outside.
“We just wanted to get him out of the house safely, with no one getting hurt,” said Fraser. “He continued to refuse until we took out some windows on the house, then he came out without incident. He is now in police holdings and is awaiting a bail hearing.”
The suspect is facing charges out of Drumheller for break-and-enter and breach of release conditions. He is now facing charges from Medicine Hat for evading police, dangerous driving, breach of domestic violence conditions and breaching other conditions.
The man’s information will not be released until early this week.
