Ottawa police say a 31-year-old man has been charged with a number of offences following an hours-long Parliament Hill lockdown on Saturday.
In a information launch despatched Sunday morning, the Ottawa Police Service (OPS) stated the person entered the safety screening space of the East Block of Parliament Hill round 2:40 p.m. Saturday and “started making threats to the protection of these inside.”
“The person was remoted to the safety screening space, and the Parliamentary Protecting Service (PPS) and the (OPS) attended to facilitate an evacuation of the constructing and surrounding space,” the discharge stated.
In line with officers, a number of packages have been discovered within the space which have been searched and cleared. No one was injured, and no explosives, weapons or hazardous supplies have been discovered on the person.
“After hours of negotiations, the person surrendered peacefully to police and was arrested on scene,” the OPS added.
Parliamentary Protecting Service officers safe the perimeter of Parliament Hill on Saturday. (Blair Gable/Reuters)
The person, who was not named within the launch, has been charged with a breach of probation, public mischief and uttering threats to trigger property injury.
Police initially launched a warning Saturday afternoon telling anybody in East Block, which homes parliamentary workplaces, to hunt shelter within the nearest room, shut and lock all doorways and conceal.
The constructing was then evacuated, as police briefly shut down a major stretch of Wellington Avenue in entrance of Parliament Hill — blocking site visitors and pedestrians.
Hours after the lockdown started, police prolonged the exclusion zone from Wellington Avenue one block again to Sparks Avenue.
A police automobile is seen on the nook of Wellington and O’Connor streets in Ottawa on Saturday. (CBC/Radio-Canada)
Ottawa police additionally introduced in specialised items, together with a minimum of one canine unit and explosives items. Two bomb disposal unit robots have been seen in entrance of Centre Block.
A authorities net web page says the East Block homes the workplaces of senators and their workers, however there may be little exercise on the Hill as a result of Parliament is dissolved for the continued federal election.
The identical net web page says the constructing as soon as held the workplaces of Sir John A. Macdonald and Sir George-Étienne Cartier, and that it nonetheless incorporates “devoted recreations of the workplaces of its well-known occupants from the nineteenth century.”
