Hostage situation in downtown Edmonton
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One hears about such things as this in far off cities. It’s a little bit weirder when it’s two blocks away:
A man with a beef against the Workers Compensation Board is holding as many as nine people at gunpoint in the WCB building in downtown Edmonton.
The man, armed with a high power hunting rifle, fired a shot in the lobby of the building on 107 Street north of 99 Avenue. No one was injured by the man who made his way to a conference room on the upper floor of the eight story building.
The man is wearing a camouflage jacket and carrying a backpack. He has told police he is “mad at the world” and blames a WCB doctor for most of his trouble. The man is in telephone negotiations with police and has asked for water and cigarettes. He says he will release one of the hostages in exchange.
Police have isolated a large area around the WCB building on 107th Street north of 99th Avenue while they deal with the gunman.
Do the cops a favour, good reader, and just steer clear of the area. Hostage situations are tense enough without a pack of rubbernecking idiots sticking their noses up as close to the yellow boundary tape as possible.
Update:
The EPS has just set up a special phone hotline 780-421-3550 for those who have concerns about family members or loved ones who work inside the WCB Building in downtown Edmonton regarding the on-going incident.
NOTE: This line is not meant for media calls or general inquiries. For those citizens who are calling we ask that they provide us with the specific name of the family member they are inquiring about.
I’ve been noticing a lot of visitors arriving at the site via Google searches for the names of the hostages. To those arriving here who are concerned about friends or family who may have been caught up in this situation, please consider making use of the above phone number.
Upper-date:
Edmonton Police say a hostage-taking incident that started about 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, has ended.
Police say it was a peaceful conclusion to the drama that lasted close to 10 hours, outside the Worker’s Compensation Board building, near 106th Street and 99th Avenue.
Police say a man surrendered without incident. No hostages were harmed.
Thank God this ended well. It would have been awful if anyone — hostages or hostage-taker — had come to harm.
I feel a full heart full sorrow for all of the victims of the practices of WCB. I feel no sorry for any person or persons that willfully ruin families and peoples lives for a living. WCB employees can claim all they want that they are only doing there jobs, but the fact of the matter is that there are children going hungry, without clothes and food because of their practices. They do not care if a person is totally disabled of there work place injuries, THEY WILL CUT YOU OFF.
I meet many people at their “so called rehab program” and they have no interest in helping the people only in getting them cut off, so they may get their bonuses. Also all of their doctors are IMMUNE TO MALPRACTICE. Look up the Workers Compensation Act to see about the IMMUNITY. This means they can say there is nothing wrong with you and there is nothing you can do about it.
I meet a fellow that had his face squashed, his eye was gone, check bone shattered, teeth missing and his face looked like a stroke victims. He was in the brain injury clinic at Malard. They told him, “Not to worry we will have you back to work with in six months of injury” He still had 4 more operations to go to reconstruct his face, not to mention his having to deal with a brain injury.
You may think that violence is no way to solve a problem. And I of all people agree, however with WCB, it had been a long time coming. I hope that this hostage situation will wake up the public and make some major reforms to WCB.
Sincerely,
DOnald
P.S. How can you feel sorry for people who sole purpose in life is to destroy others.
NOBODY WANTS THE TRUTH!!!!!!!!!!!
Whoa there, Donald. I’m not avoiding the truth; I just have the blog set to hold all comments for approval before posting.
As to the WCB, I’m well aware that their practices are both shoddy and suspect, that they really do very little to help injured workers, and that their principal goal seems to be avoiding having to write cheques. I get that.
Heck, at a restaurant I used to work at, the phrase “Workers’!” was a joke; the guys I worked with woulda probably not have filed for compensation if they’da lopped off their hand while cutting vegetables!
But even taking all that as read, hostage taking and threatening the lives of others is a crime. The people held hostage at the WCB may be involved with a shitty organization, but they’re still people, still human beings. Neither taking then hostage or harming them is justified, no matter how badly this man with the rifle has suffered.
That, and doing what he’s done is about the LAST thing that will work to resolve either his plight or the mess that is the WCB. This incident is just as likely to make people who are not “in the know” to feel sympathy for the Board…not to mention the fact that if the hostage-taker thinks his life is messed up now, prison will not be any sort of improvement on those circumstances (most likely).