Cops acting on a tip about an armed suspect
Oct 10, 2008 - 07:25 PM
By Jeff Mitchell
OSHAWA -- A downtown Oshawa street was closed down for several hours Friday afternoon after police received a tip that a man being sought on an arrest warrant was holed up was in the area.
Heavily-armed members of the emergency response unit backed up by uniformed cops converged on the area and ordered several people out of a rooming house, training guns on several young men who were ordered to raise their hands and kneel on the pavement before being whisked away by officers.
As it turned out the suspect was not found in the house, on Albert Street just south of Elm Street, and no one found inside was charged, Staff-Sergeant Randy Henning said.
"There's nobody in custody," he said as officers, including rifle-toting ERU members and canine officers, disassembled the perimeter they'd set up.
Police began to converge on the area shortly after 1 p.m. when police received a call that a man wanted for assault was in a house on Albert Street. Throughout the afternoon cops kept an eye on the neighbourhood and as members of the ERU arrived they shut down Albert Street and converged on the rooming house.
One by one people, most of them young men, came out of the house with hands raised over their heads, obeying orders barked at them by an officer holding a bullhorn.
Staff-Sgt. Henning said the escalated police response was ordered because there was a possibility a suspect was armed. He did not release the name of the suspect or provide specific details of the allegations against him.
"He's wanted for a serious assault," he said.
The street was reopened shortly after 5 p.m.
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