Hitchhiker arrested after holding truck driver at gunpoint near Kamloops

RCMP have one man in custody following a strange hostage incident that involved a gun near Kamloops in Monday night.

Police shut down both Highway 5 and Highway 1 outside Kamloops at around 8:30 p.m. for what they called a high-risk police incident.

At around 6:30 p.m., Clearwater and Kamloops RCMP received a report of a male hitchhiker who was holding a commercial truck driver at gunpoint after he was picked up near Avola on Highway 5, a small community about 200 km north of Kamloops.

Police say they tracked the southbound transport and disabled the vehicle near the Highway 5 weigh scales closer to the interchange with the Trans-Canada Highway, but did not disclose how that maneuvre took place.

The drive managed to leave the vehicle unharmed and the suspect was taken into custody without incident, RCMP said.

The gun incident took place less than 12 hours following the fatal shooting of an Abbotsford police officer, and less than two days after an RCMP officer was shot at by a man outside a Kamloops motel.

Suspects are in custody in both those incidents.

Route 5 and 1 were reopened shortly after 9 p.m. Monday.