Saanich police made an arrest early Tuesday after the reported removal of a court-ordered electronic-monitoring bracelet led to a standoff. Officers were notified about 9:30 p.m. Monday by B.C. . . .
Three people were arrested – and drugs, weapons and cash were seized – after police say suspects barricaded themselves inside temporary housing facility in Victoria.
Victoria police were called about 3 p.m. to a temporary housing facility in the 100-block of Gorge Road East. They attempted to execute a search warrant related to a drug-trafficking investigation but the people inside the suite in question would not co-operate. The Greater Victoria Emergency Response Team and crisis negotiators were brought in, and after several hours two men and a woman were arrested. Charges of drug trafficking and possession of weapons will be recommended, police said.
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The arrest involved more than a dozen officers, including armed tactical members of the Greater Victoria Emergency Response Team. The man surrendered just after 2 a.m. after tactical officers used a flash bang device. No one was injured. Victoria police statistics show that 60 per cent of high-priority calls between June and November were focused on the city’s multi-unit residential temporary housing facilities and encampments in parks and areas in the immediate vicinity. Police responded to 4,384 priority one or priority two calls at the 13 locations between June shortly after the B.C. government purchased or leased several hotels in Victoria this summer to house hundreds of people living in encampments in Topaz Park and on Pandora Avenue and November.