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THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014 • MERRITT NEWSPAPERS
PLEASING THE PALATE It was a full house at the Grand Pub and Grill Tuesday for the 10th annual wine tasting, where patrons sampled local cider and Okanagan wines paired with various courses. Emily Wessel/Herald
Standoff with suicidal man ends peacefully By Michael Potestio THE HERALD
reporter@merrittherald.com
A man from the Lower Mainland intent on committing suicide in the Merritt area was apprehended by police last Friday. On Jan. 17 at about 8:30 p.m., Merritt RCMP received a call from a woman in the Lower Mainland who said her husband had called her and told her he had a gun and was going to kill himself. Police had the man’s cellphone pinged for a location, but were unable to
determine where in the Merritt area he was. Police officers patrolled logging roads in an attempt to locate the suspect. A second ping on the cellphone at 10 p.m. was successful in determining his location. Co-ordinates put him south of Merritt near Highway 5. Merritt RCMP Staff Sgt. Sheila White said the suspect had travelled up a logging road and was in and out of his vehicle during the incident. White told the Herald this
situation was by no means simple and took hours to diffuse. “It happened on a deserted logging road in the middle of nowhere. The members had to go on foot at one point, and didn’t know where he was,” White said, noting it was a scary situation to walk into, knowing the man had a gun and the potential to use it on himself and the officers. “That mindset — walking through the darkness, trying to find somebody to help them — is disconcerting, to say the least,” White
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shootout. After a lengthy phone conversation, an officer was able to convince the man to walk out to them and turn himself in. At 1:30 a.m., RCMP members took the man into custody without incident. A loaded shotgun and ammunition were located in the man’s vehicle after he was taken into custody. He was transported to the Nicola Valley Hospital and Health Centre, then admitted to a hospital in Surrey under the Mental Health Act.
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by his wife in order to talk him through his issues and ensure he didn’t harm himself or others. “We used whatever tools we could. If the cellphone wasn’t working then we’d text, if the text wasn’t working then we’d phone or talk to him verbally,” White said. At 12:30 a.m., the man’s wife, who had been in contact with RCMP, told police she had talked to her husband on the phone. She told police he said he had been drinking, was scared and was afraid of dying in a
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said. By pinging his cellphone again and searching the road, officers were able to locate the man by 11:20 p.m., but he didn’t respond to commands from police and hid in the bush. Officers set up a perimeter of the area until they could relocate the man and determine his risk. White said police were able to communicate with the man verbally, via text message and cellphone calls. They also communicated with him through phone conversations relayed
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