Man in custody after overnight standoff in Dartmouth

A 29-year-old man is in custody after a standoff in Dartmouth that lasted more than 15 hours.

Halifax Regional Police say they attended the residence in the 200 block of Victoria Road at 9:15 p.m., in an attempt to arrest a man on previous charges.

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Police say when they arrived at the home, the man grabbed a knife and declared he had no intentions to surrender to them.

Officers were negotiating with the man for over 15 hours, police say, until he finally exited the residence on his accord at around 12:30 p.m.

Michael McCluskey, who lives right next door to the home, heard the negotiations throughout the morning. He had high praise for all the officers involved.

They were being very reassuring to him, they were understand that there was a problem,” McCluskey said. “Obviously it was a fellow in distress, and they were being very good to him. Treating him like a person instead of a criminal, and I think that went a long way to settling it the way it did.”

McCluskey says he saw about 10 police cruisers respond to the scene, along with a command van and a canine unit.

“It was a little weird to look out the door and see a whole bunch of automatic rifles with gentlemen outside,” said McCluskey. “It was also kind of surreal because they were sitting in my lawn chairs and my mother was describing her mustard pickle recipe to them.”

“So if it has to be peak Dartmouth, this is peak Dartmouth.”

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Victoria Road between Woodland Avenue and Vanessa Drive was closed to traffic while the negotiation took place. It has since reopened.

Halifax Regional Police Sgt. Pierre Bourdages says the force is considering the operation a success.

“What we want is to bring a peaceful and safe resoution to these incidents,” said Bourdages. “In this case, yes it took 15 hours, traffic was disrupted, but the male obviously was able to leave the residence safely unharmed and taken into custody.”

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The suspect, whose identity has not yet been released, is facing charges of assault, uttering threats and breach of probation in relation to a previous incident.

He’s also facing charges of obstruction of justice and property damage, as some police equipment was damaged during the standoff.

He’ll face the charges in Dartmouth provincial court on Tuesday.