Springfield Road apartment where police action took place on Tuesday night. UPDATE 2:32 p.m Kelowna RCMP say they responded to a third-hand report of an agitated man waving a rifle around at a residence in the 2600 block of Springfield Road Tuesday night. “Front line officers responded and immediately sealed off the area due to the potential threat to the public,” says Sgt. Kevin Duggan, RCMP spokesman. Kelowna RCMP and Southeast District tactical officers contained the area. “The occupants of the house left peacefully. A search warrant was executed at the residence and several firearms were seized,” says Sgt. Dugan. The investigation is ongoing. UPDATE: 2:05 p.m A Springfield Road resident whose home was across the street as police swarmed the Kelowna neighborhood Tuesday night says he heard a flash grenade and screamed as officers made an arrest. Bill McGowan says he and his son and their tenant were all home when police flooded the 2600 block at about 11:30 p.m. His wife had just left work and wasn’t able to get home until 6:30 this morning as police had cordoned off the area and officers had their guns drawn. When he noticed the commotion, McGowan left his house to see what was going on and was ordered back inside. Despite the fact that his wife was only a few hundred meters away, she was not allowed to enter the police perimeter. “There was a lot of shouting … ‘put your hands behind your back’ … as the police arrested a man,” says McGowan. The emergency response team had shields and rifles, he says, and when the flash grenade went off, they all went downstairs with their pets. The police drama was set in a maisonette across the street that McGowan says was a “notorious drug house”. “Police and ambulances are there all the time,” he said Wednesday afternoon. He is concerned that residents in the area were not advised more to take shelter as “we were right in the line of sight of what could have been a lot of gunfire”. Kelowna RCMP have yet to release any statement regarding the incident. ORIGINAL: 6:45 AM Plainclothes officers swarmed the area of Springfield and Creekside streets in Kelowna overnight. Several residents reported a heavy police presence from around midnight until the early hours of this morning. The police apparently had roads blocked off and weren’t letting anyone in or out. Some residents report that they were unable to return to their homes and had to find alternative accommodation for the night. Police are believed to have focused on a vacant house in the area, although no details have been released by police so far. Castanet has contacted the RCMP for more information. Readers report seeing dozens of police vehicles in the area and officers from the emergency response team dressed in military-style fatigues. The RCMP’s tactical response vehicle was also at the scene and an ambulance was nearby. Castanet will update this story as more information becomes available.
