Police respond to shots fired in Iqaluit neighbourhood
Officers remain in Tasilik Street area Saturday after early morning call
The RCMP says people in Iqaluit will notice a police presence around Tasilik Street on Saturday where they responded to reports of shots fired from a home in the area early Saturday morning. (Photo by Jeff Pelletier)
Police in Iqaluit remained on Tasilik Street Saturday afternoon — close to 12 hours after responding to a report that shots had been fired in the early morning hours.
RCMP officers in Iqaluit appeared to take a person into custody shortly before 2 a.m. Saturday morning after they responded to a call in the Lake Subdivision area.
The RCMP says people in Iqaluit will notice an police presence around Tasilik Street on Saturday where they responded to reports of shots fired from a home in the area early Saturday morning. (Photo by Jeff Pelletier)
But around noon, officers were still in the area — at last three wearing tactical gear, some were in plain clothes. A drone was mobilized and in the air.
Police activity is focused on building 2245, a multiplex apartment building called Crosswinds.
They called out, apparently to someone inside a residence. They told him to come downstairs where they “left a cellphone for you.”
At 12:50 p.m., police called out to the person, blared the sirens on their vehicles a few times. One officer threw rocks at the side of the house in an apparent bid to get the person’s attention and to “come back to the window.”
The situation began when Iqaluit RCMP received a report at approximately 12:50 a.m. that shots had been fired from a Tasilik Street home, said a police news release issued Saturday morning by RCMP spokesperson Sgt. George Henrie.
More shots were heard coming from a residence when police arrived, the release added.
Around 1:45 a.m., at least five RCMP vehicles, including some unmarked vehicles, were on scene near the intersection of Tasilik and Imiqtarviminiq streets.
Several officers, including some in what appeared to be tactical gear, were in the area, navigating around homes and using a loudspeaker to tell people to stay inside.
An officer on scene told a Nunatsiaq News reporter to stand back, saying, “This is serious.”
At 1:18 a.m, the RCMP issued a shelter-in-place advisory, using the Alert Ready System that sends emergency notifications to cellphones.
It told people to “shelter in place, lock doors and stay away from windows” but did not give information about the nature of the emergency.
Police issued a second advisory at 1:54 a.m. on the Nunavut RCMP’s Facebook page.
A little before 2 a.m., police officers put one person in the back of an RCMP pickup truck. Shortly afterward, two of the RCMP vehicles left the scene.
But some police officers and vehicles remained in the area throughout the morning.
Police were still on the scene as of noon on Saturday. A news release asked the public to avoid the area near Tasilik Street.
The RCMP said to expect “an increase in police presence” in the area.
Despite the police activity, children were seen playing outdoors in nearby areas and people were going about their usual weekend business.
No injuries have been reported.
Updates will be provided when they become available.
Getting really sick of this nonsense.
The problem is not the alchool sold in the store, you fall asleep when too drunk on normal booze.
The problem is the Crack, it is not even hard to know where they get it, they all call it the crack house !
Kudos to the RCMP for containing this, keeping the public informed, and keeping everyone safe. Grateful.
So, the emergency alert came at 1:18am, jolting scores of people out of their sound sleep with an unbidden loud shriek. All for something that was highly localized to Tasilik Street. Why disrupt 9,000 people when the existing standardized approach of using RCMP cruisers to block off the affected streets really was already enough?
I also note that the removal of the emergency alert at 4:47pm created a similarly ear-piercing tone, again creating an unnecessary cacophony in an otherwise beautiful sunny day. Although the Pelmorex Alert Ready system seems to be working very well (and this is something to be thankful for), does it not have the option of broadcasting a non-urgent information message silently?
My view is that geographically overly broad alerts show a need for better localization and scoping of the alert broadcasting. Also, the scale of the disruption should be keyed to the relevance to the actual audience. For example, if a huge building fire were occurring downtown in low-wind conditions, the resulting highly toxic smoke pall is something that everyone should be alerted to. So, a whole-community alert would make perfect sense for this kind of genuinely wide-area situation. For example, in a fire situation, people (particularly those with respiratory conditions such as asthma) can avoid the area and/or shelter in place.
(And by the way, social media sites like Facebook and Twitter/X are no substitute for proper systems. Who really wants to make Trumpian billionaires Zuckerberg and Musk even richer than they already are?)
Getting back to that Tasilik Street incident, and looking at the photos showing those massive machine guns — are we militarizing our police too? This is Canada, not Trumpland. I am surprised to see military rifles here in Iqaluit’s civilian police force.
Come to think of it, is our RCMP getting its training materials and procedures from American sources? Or, have powerful battlefield rifles always been standard-issue for police forces of all sizes?
I wish they had at least mentioned the area the issue was in. We had clients trying to walk all over exploring, and we had staff from all over the town trying to get to and from work. You can’t tell everybody in the entire town to stay indoors for 16 hours. Not only is it going to scare some people, but realistically if a situation is localized to one area, at least it gives peace of mind that another area is safe.
Absolutely! The Alert not saying WHERE the issue was or at least a general idea of WHY seems a bit stupid. A local gunman in a specific area tells you avoid that area. Shelter in place RCMP says so just invites panic.
“At 1:18 a.m, the RCMP issued a shelter-in-place advisory, using the Alert Ready System that sends emergency notifications to cellphones.”
…why did my phone wake me up after 4am? I got a delayed alert for dome reason?
People will ALWAYS find something to complain about!
I am pretty sure emergency alerts are standardized across the country and are not like customizable birthday cards.
And let’s say person of interest was on foot running around the city. Do you expect your phone to “shriek” every 10min with live location???
Seriously… Emergency alerts are sent out so people are vigilant regardless of where you live. Get up, look out your window, no bright lights? lock your doors and go back to sleep. But if you see bright lights, then something is going on in YOUR AREA, lock the doors.
I’m confused about fire comment. If there is fire by the beach but I’m at the end of plateau. How would that affect me in low wind? Also, I have eyes to see there is fire.
P.S. Phones in our household didn’t “shriek” but politely vibrated at a continuous rate. So perhaps, “shrieking” has something to do with your phone settings. Sorry, I don’t think emergency alerts can change your phone volume.