Dain City: Warzone

I like to write about what's happening in my community, and in some cases, I've been involved in organizing events which I later wrote up. But it's not very often I find myself in the middle of a major news story - yet that's exactly what happened tonight.

Not since Chad Everett came to town in 1981 has there been this much action in Dain City. Roads were closed, spike strips were laid down, mobile command centers were set up, and officers roamed the streets with guns drawn. It really was like something out of a movie.

Around 6:50 this evening, I saw a Facebook post claiming that at least 2 police cruisers and an ambulance were on the scene in Dain City. I was shocked - nothing ever happens here! So of course, I went outside to have a look. Sure enough, the stretch of Kingsway between Forks Road and the train tracks was blocked off by police, and a roadblock had been set up on Forks Road by Bay Avenue. An officer on foot was redirecting traffic coming in from over the bridge, sending the cars back the way they came. Another officer was instructing the family living on the corner of Forks and Kingsway (the yellow house in the above image) to leave the area. 

The word on the street at that time was that somebody had held up the convenience store with a weapon, and was now on the loose. The ambulance was assumed to contain either one of the store's owners, or a customer who had been injured - but of course, authorities can't comment on that. I watched a K9 officer exit the cruiser shown in the picture and head toward the store, but I went back inside before he entered any buildings.

I went outside a second time a short while later to see that the roadblock on Forks had dispersed. The officer on the bridge was still there, as were the ones parked on Kingsway. It seemed that the situation must have been resolved. I headed back inside to shower.

After that, though, I checked the feed again and found a real shocker. Not only was the roadblock back in place, but the NRP had set up mobile command centers in the parking lot of my building. 

The command centers - three of them, to be precise - were what truly convinced me that this was serious. These vehicles are quite rarely seen in action, and now here they were in my backyard. I watched them from a distance and observed an officer dressed in what appeared to be a bulletproof vest entering one of the trailers. By now, the story amongst the crowd had become more vague - nobody mentioned the corner store, it was just an armed man. The police still weren't giving out any information. I went back inside.

But my curiosity got the best of me, and I checked outside one more time about 20 minutes later. This time, the area was eerily quiet - the police had almost completely cleared the area, and we were in a full lockdown. Nobody was allowed to enter Dain City. Across the street from me, an officer stood holding a large gun, speaking to another officer in someone's front yard. It felt more like the wrong side of Kingston, Jamaica, than a scene out of peaceful Dain City, Ontario.

This time, an officer told me that I should either go inside and take shelter in my basement, or else get out of Dain City for the time being. As a resident of a second-floor apartment, I chose neither, and simply locked and chained my door before settling in for the night.

*

Much later, at around 10:30, the man in question peacefully surrended to the police, and the true facts of what happened this evening were revealed. It was a case of a man in crisis, armed with several weapons, capable of harming himself and others should he have chosen to do so. The command centres in my parking lot were negotiation centres, from which police tried to convince the man to end the standoff without incident. Luckily, he did, and he was taken into custody. The army of police vehicles began to pull out of Dain City.

We knew it was all over when the band at the Dain City Tavern started playing again.

There have been a lot of stories tonight. Some say that the man held up or otherwise robbed the Dain City Convenience before hunkering down in his home. One person told me that he had shot his wife prior to the standoff. Still others said that he had taken a hostage, though nobody claimed to know who it was.

But for now, I choose to forget about all those conflicting stories, and focus on one thing. As the situation finally draws to a close, and Dain City returns to being a quiet, peaceful hamlet, we can all be thankful that the situation was resolved as peacefully as possible.

It's been a crazy evening, and I think we all need a bit of rest. So the rest of the fine folks who live here in D.C. - good night!