Axe-wielding Iqaluit man arrested after brawl with police

Daniel Caza, 29, of Iqaluit faces multiple charges after a man with an axe is alleged to have been banging on doors in the 300s area of town. The man is also alleged to have provoked a scuffle at the police station when he was being booked. (FILE PHOTO)

A 29-year-old Iqaluit man is in custody and facing a slew of charges after the RCMP reported that they arrested an intoxicated man wielding an axe outside homes in Iqaluit’s 300s area during the early morning hours of Tuesday, Feb. 6.

That altercation continued with a scuffle at the RCMP’s Iqaluit detachment, where the man is alleged to have resisted arrest during the booking process, the RCMP said in a release.

Daniel Caza has been charged with carrying a weapon for a dangerous purpose, assaulting a peace officer with a weapon and for breaching court orders directing him to keep the peace and abstain from intoxicating substances.

Police responded to Iqaluit’s 300-block area after receiving reports of an intoxicated man banging on doors with an axe in the early morning hours of Tuesday, the RCMP release said.

Officers confronted the armed man from a distance, and he refused to drop his axe when requested to do so.

The man eventually surrendered.

But after he was taken to the RCMP detachment for processing, a scuffle erupted, and it “took several officers to secure him into a cell,” the RCMP said.

Caza appeared later that day before a justice of the peace at the Nunavut Court of Justice in Iqaluit.