The Abbotsford police department is reporting that "During followup for domestic invest #AbbyPD learned male was in the res breaching his no contact conditions with the vic. Home evacuated & male barricaded self. ERT & Negotiators called to assist. Male surrendered when fire started inside the res. Male arrested & invest continues." That's not exactly what happened.
I rode by the scene at Westerly Street on Southdale Crescent around 4:00 PM and spoke with two different witnesses who both heard and saw tear gas go off right before the fire started.
One witness who was outside at the time heard and saw the police discharge two flash grenades outside the front of the house. Then the witness heard popping in the rear of the house and I asked if there were more flash grenades. No, these were quite and they had smoke. This is what the other witness also saw. Then the smoke from the tear gas turned into black billowing smoke and the fire department soon showed up. Apparently the police set the house fire off with their tear gas. At least they didn't shoot the hostage this time.
Perhaps tear gas isn't the best choice for inside a wood framed house.
FIRE MARSHAL'S REPORT: Tear gas canister started deadly fire
TEAR GAS STARTED PHARMACY FIRE, REPORT SAYS
There are two type of CS tear gas and smoke devices, pyrotechnic and aerosol. The pyrotechnic are much more effective in that they produce a much larger volume of material, but the downside is they tend to light things on fire. Gotta be careful with that stuff. Of course if you DGAF, then you don't need to worry about that, right?
ReplyDeleteFor me this falls into the same category as shooting people's dogs. Any cop without the sense to call an animal control specialist, or who is inordinately afraid of dogs, doesn't belong on the street to begin with. Ever seen a Taser used on a dog? It's just as funny as when it's used on people, the dog lives to bark another day, and the kids in the family don't grow up hating cops because some "fear-biter" shot their dog when there was another way to handle the situation. There's always another way, but maybe not one where you get to use your weapon in the line of duty. Way to go, Hee-ro....