CALGARY – Canadian Olympic medallist Carolyn Darbyshire had a brush with an agitated knife-wielding man during a terrifying hostage incident at a Calgary school Thursday.
Darbyshire, a member of the Canadian silver medal curling team, was at A.E. Cross School in southwest Calgary to address a student assembly. She was in the school office when a man walked in and demanded to see the principal – then brandished a knife when he was told the principal wasn’t available.
"He just wanted to see the principal. He wanted to see him and was asking for a meeting with him," said Darbyshire, who ran to notify the principal and others about what was happening.
"(The secretary) was trying to tell him that he was in a meeting and he couldn’t come. That’s when he pulled the knife on her."
Darbyshire’s husband quickly escorted her from the room, but remained in the school as police evacuated students, resolved the incident without casualties and took a suspect into custody.
"The school did a really good job evacuating. The kids were really, really good," Darbyshire said.
Calgary tactical team members successfully negotiated with the 25 year-old man, taking him into custody shortly before 4 p.m. According to police, the man turned over his hostage on negotiations of a bottle of water.
According to police, the 25-year-old suspect had taken a secretary in her mid-40s hostage in the principal’s office of the junior high earlier Thursday afternoon. She was uninjured, but distraught, police said.
The man is a former student at A.E. Cross and "apparently he suffered an injury some years back. He is blaming the principal for that injury and now he wants to talk to that principal," said Insp. Frank Reuser.
Also, hidden inside an interior office, was a 13-year-old boy who called his mother from his cellphone to alert her of the problem. His mother then went on to alert police. The boy scrambled to hide in a smaller office within the administrative office, police say. He was found safe.
Children at the school were attending an assembly when the incident happened. Darbyshire helped keep the students occupied, recalling her Olympic experience, until police arrived. Students were then escorted onto waiting school buses and taken to Glenbrook school.
Darbyshire was at the school to address the pep rally on Thursday afternoon.
Students inside the gym told the Calgary Herald that teachers addressed the assembly and said there was a dangerous man inside the school – and that the event wasn’t a drill.
Shelly Weeks arrived to pick up her child, who’s in Grade 8 at the school.
"My daughter called me in tears and cried ‘Come get me.’ I flipped over to the AM radio station and hear there was a hostage taking."
According to student Stefan Gigovic, the school had practised hostage taking drills before "but we never thought it was going to happen."
"We’re all, like, shaken up. A couple of kids were crying."
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