Downtown Halifax weapons calls not related
Posted Oct 24, 2014 09:35:48 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A man accused of leaving a sawed-off shotgun on a Halifax bus made a brief appearance in court Friday.
Twenty-five-year-old Justin Crathorne was remanded into custody until his next hearing on November 6th.
At that point he could enter a plea on multiple charges, including possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose and carrying a concealed weapon.
Crown attorney Brian Cox says he was opposed to Crathorne’s release because of the dangerous nature of the weapon.
“The weapon found, that’s alleged to have been in the possession of the accused is a dangerous weapon — it’s a sawed-off shotgun,” said Cox.
“[It’s] inherently dangerous, both the damage it can conflict, and also the fact that it can be concealed.”
Meantime, Halifax Regional Police have confirmed the two weapons calls they received were not related.
Just after 8:30 a.m. yesterday, police received one call from a resident saying they spotted someone in the Duke and Brunswick area carrying a rifle wrapped in a black cloth.
Many businesses and organizations in the downtown core went into lockdown.
Police said no shots were fired, and it’s possible what the caller saw wasn’t really a gun.
“Sometimes individuals are seeing what they think is a firearm, but may turn out not to be a firearm,” said Const. Pierre Bourdages.
While a heavy police presence was investigating that report, at 11:08 a.m., police arrested a man near Argyle Street and Carmichael Street after an unloaded sawed-off shotgun was left on a Halifax Transit bus.
Police spokesperson Pierre Bourdages told News 95.7, “The individual we arrested on the Metro Transit bus is not the individual who was seen earlier in downtown Halifax.”
He said video surveillance shows the individual arrested was nowhere near downtown area at the time they received the first report of a gun sighting earlier in the morning.
He added they have not recovered any video surveillance of reported armed man downtown Halifax yesterday and still haven’t confirmed report.
Police are still investigating the original report.
