WATCH ABOVE: Officers cordoned off an industrial area around noon after receiving reports of a man with a gun.
TORONTO/HALIFAX – Halifax Regional Police say there was no sign of a reported gunman at an industrial park in Dartmouth.
Heavily armed police locked down the Burnside Industrial Park after receiving reports of a man with a gun just after 11:30 a.m. on Saturday.
WATCH: Police lock down area in Dartmouth after gunman sighting
Halifax Regional Police Sgt. Jeff Carr said a man called police to report a man with a gun on the roof of a business.
Carr said police have spoken with that witness several times to confirm the story.
“He was very confident it was a long gun that the person was carrying. We responded with several police units. We originally had a large perimeter not knowing what we were dealing with,” he said.
Police spent hours scouring the area but, just before 6 p.m. Atlantic time, confirmed that no gunman had been found and there was no evidence related to the report of a gunman.
“The scene is contained. They’re confident there’s nobody in the building,” said Staff Sgt. Bill Morris.
Morris said police seized a long gun and two pellet guns but they have yet to determine if the weapons were involved in the report of the gunman.
“There were no shots fired. We’re going to follow up on some eyewitness accounts that we had to determine what exactly happened here to bring us to this point,” Morris said.
Morris adds that no one is in police custody in relation to the incident.
Carr said other people nearby told police they had not seen a man with a gun.
“Hopefully what this person believed they saw was not in fact the case,” he said.
Earlier police arrested and released two men; one man reportedly hopped a fence at the scene after hearing about the investigation on social media, and the other said he was working in the building and had not known about the evacuation.
“I was told to stay inside until the officers came to get me,” said Ivan Hill.
“I just come out to the door and of course they handcuff me and told me to walk backwards, the whole scenario,” he said.
“Now I’m all scared like everybody else.”
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No charges are expected against either men.
People working in the building where the gunman was supposedly spotted describe a hectic scene.
“They said that there were reports he was on the yellow building on the roof. Then they lost him from that point,” said Anna Isenor.
“It is nerve-wracking after everything that’s been on the news the past couple days,” she said, referring to the shootings in Moncton.
The New Brunswick town is still mourning after three RCMP officers were shot to death and two others were wounded.
Carr said the incident is still fresh on the minds of officers.
“It has been a tense time in the last week in policing. What I can say is all times we take the utmost in relation to the safety of the public and also in relation to the safety of our officers,” he said.
Global Halifax journalists Julia Wong and Cory McGraw reported live from the scene.
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