Greater Victoria Emergency Response Team (GVERT) officers used pepper spray and plastic rounds to apprehend a man in crisis Friday morning, after negotiating and crisis response efforts failed.
The night of Oct. 15, patrol officers received a report that a man had entered a multi-unit residential building in the 800-block of Johnson Street and started destroying property. He was not a resident of the building.
Upon police arriving at the building, the man barricaded himself in a stairwell. The officers began negotiations and tried using “critical incident de-escalation techniques” but the man continued to damage property.
READ ALSO: VicPD spends two hours de-escalating armed man in crisis
At that point, GVERT, crisis negotiators and a VicPD K9 were called to the scene and also attempted to work with the man. Their efforts were also unsuccessful.
GVERT officers then used pepper spray and ARWEN less-lethal munition — which fires plastic rounds — to take the man into custody. He was apprehended under the Mental Health Act and transported to hospital by B.C. Emergency Health Services paramedics, where he was held.
The file remains under investigation and officers are recommending charges of mischief.
Early this morning GVERT officers, working with Patrol, Crisis Negotiators & @VicPDK9, apprehended a man in crisis who caused significant property damage & barricaded himself in the stairwell of a multi-unit residential building, 800-blk of Johnson. #yyj https://t.co/zelSs7BxmO
— Victoria Police (@vicpdcanada) October 16, 2020
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