An intoxicated man who pointed a gun at a West Shore Mountie last Friday night is extremely lucky one of the responding officers was a highly trained former member of the Emergency Response Team.
West Shore spokesperson, Cnst. Nancy Saggar, says the incident January 18th saw officers called to a rural Metchosin property involved an intoxicated man with what looked like an assault rifle who was yelling at police to shoot him:
" He was not responding to any of the commands that were being given to him. He was being told over and over again drop the gun, drop the gun -- and he wouldn't do it. Told members that they would have to shoot him in order to get him to drop the gun."
As officers got closer the man pointed the gun directly at the chest of Sgt. Lea -- a former Emergency Response Team member and trainer:
"For a long time actually, for about 5 years, was a member of the emergency response team. Which is known as ERT, basically the SWAT team of Canada. And he was actually highly skilled and specialized in the team in particular, and used to actually train members to be on the team. So he's a teacher when it comes to emergency response."
Sgt. Lea recognized the gun was an air soft rifle, moved in, took control of the gun, and arrested the man who was held in cells overnight.
Once sober he was adamant he had no intentions of harming himself, and it became clear his decisions were heavily influenced by his level of intoxication.