EDMONTON -- Police officers negotiated a peaceful surrender with a young man who took a gun into the Edmonton Young Offender Centre Sunday.
EPS officers responded at 3:46 p.m. to the youth correctional facility which is located just north of the Edmonton Remand Centre in the far northwest of the city.
The man, who police originally claimed was a youth, was later said to be in his early 20s.
Staff at the centre stopped him at the front doors, police said.
“They managed to confine the individual to the front vestibule of EYOC and keep him contained until we arrived. Investigations are still ongoing into what his exact motives were,” Acting Staff Sgt. Scott Kruse told reporters.
The man had a revolver, Kruse said.
“He did have the firearm in his hand. He thankfully wasn’t pointing it at our members, he wasn’t pointing it inside. Not that it takes much time for a person holding at their side to point it at someone,” Kruse said.
Officers talked to the man for several hours and he eventually surrendered around 7 p.m.
Kruse referred to the call as a “difficult situation,” for officers and said a suicide-by-police situation is a possible motive.
“Once we arrived he didn’t make any demands as far as what he wanted or why he was there. He did a couple times ask us to shoot him. That, of course did not happen,” Kruse said.
No one was injured in the incident.
The centre was locked down, but no evacuations took place.
Police said the man was not an inmate at the centre.
Several ambulances and tactical vehicles could be seen staged near the correctional facility and a patrol officer closed access from 127 Street.
Staff trying to access the facility were also kept back, with several guards and medical employees in uniforms staging on 127 Street.
Staff were allowed to enter just after 5 p.m., and the area was opened to the public around 8 p.m.
Gun charges are pending, but Kruse couldn’t say exactly what they will be or how many could be laid.
