Cornwall ON – Reports have been confirmed that the Containment Team has been called to the East End of Cornwall (St. Felix between 3rd and 4th)) and that residents are being asked to stay indoors. We’re getting reports of a hostage situation and will update you as reports become live.
If you have any information, photos or video please email us at info@cornwallfreenews.com or via our hotline 613.361.1755
UPDATE
Police are now reporting at 1:01 AM that this was not a hostage taking and that the situation has now been resolved and that residents should be allowed to return to their homes. Details will be briefed and released in the morning and we’ll update this further as news unfolds.
UPDATE
7:15 AM and we’re still awaiting official word from Cornwall City Police. As soon as we get an official response we’ll relay it to the public.
FINAL UPDATE
I spoke with police this morning and was given the official update. The Containment team was called to an incident on St. Felix. No gunshots. No victims or injuries were reported. One person was detained and released.
If we receive more information we’ll release it as it comes in and if you have any photos or details of last night or any incident you can email them into info@cornwallfreenews.com or call our hotline at 613.361.1755
Personally I think this is stupid. There’s no coverage on what this exactly was. I received a phone call telling me that I should go in my basement and stay indoors. The police need to release more information than this. We can’t be left in the dark here.
I agree with Ryan!! This put fear into my whole family! I am a mother of three under the age of 4yrs old and had to bring all the children at 10 pm in the basement…We were scared and stayed in the basement for the night because we thought the worst!! My goodness, a few more facts would help!!!
Then when trying find out what happened and if the problem was resolved….no answer! To release an automated system with few details and those kids of instructions and no follow up until late morning??!!! I think we could do better than that!!
It’s a police thing the silence. It’s as though they think we can’t be trusted knowing what the problem really is nor the gravity of the situation. I wonder how many people took their families into the basement and Dad/Mom sat there with a gun in their hand not knowing what to expect. Imagine some noise “upstairs” and then at the top of the stairs. BAM! BAM! Blast away Dad/Mom!
Bang, bang, bang the noise comes down the stairs like someone falling and we see the dog laying there all crumpled up…….dead! Way to go police, you never divulged anything! It could have been worse!
Well once again in Cornwall a tragedy happening and nowhere is aware of it, nothing unusual about that is there??? The Cornwall Police seem to hide to much about many situations that happen around the City which i think is very ridiculous, maybe Cornwall would be alot safer to live in if they would release the bads that happen in the surrounding area but no it’s always hush hush so nobody knows whats going on in Cornwall but yet how do we protect ourselves from such things if we never get a true outcome on whats happening in our own Community??? THE CORNWALL POLICE FORCE MUST START BEING MORE ADEQUATE ON LETTING US CORNWALITES KNOW HOW TO KEEP SAFE IN OUR OWN CITY..WAKE UP CORNWALL POLICE LET US IN ON WHAT’S REALLY HAPPENING IN OUR CITY STOP BEING SO DISCREET WE ALSO LIVE HERE AND HAVE THESE RIGHTS…
I think you folks need to take a step back and realize that telling people too much is probably worse. Not only are you going to attract hundreds of ‘looky loos’ and other people who just want to have a peak at what’s going on, but you take the risk of instilling panic. Use some sense, and think perhaps that there may be a reason these residents were not informed of the details. Perhaps even consider that there wasn’t adequate information at the time of the call and that they wanted to play it safe for YOUR safety.
I would tend to agree with you DOR. While there’s always room for improvement I would be the first to admit that the officers I spoke to last night and today were professional and cooperative with my information requests.
We’re going to add a segment to our Tuesday morning show on Seawayradio.com so anyone wants to call into the show the numbers are 1 (646) 595-4982, 1 (877) 217-3932. or you can email in a comment or question to info@cornwallfreenews.com. We’re going to try and have a rep from the Cornwall Police Force join us as well.
Just be happy you were warned in the first place. How much would you all be complaining right now had you heard nothing at all from the police and something horrible happened to you or a family member while you were sleeping in your beds, totally unawares.
I understand you can never please everyone, but come on people…use some common sense on this one. Quit whining about what you didn’t know and be thankful for what you did find out.
I received a call Friday, June the 18th just before 11pm from my mother who was scared out of her wits, saying she received a call from the police shortly after 10pm telling her to get to her basement and stay there until they called her back. Not knowing at first what to make of it, and since she doesn’t have a basement she called the police back. The woman on the phone asked for her address and confirmed she was “VERY CLOSE” to a situation that police were negotiating. The woman then told her since she doesn’t have a basement to go to, that she should go to the southern most part of her house away from doors and windows. The scariest thing to my mother was the way she ended the call wishing her to “be safe”. After spending a couple hours calming her down on the phone, “I actually considered going to pick her up”, but unaware of the severity of the situation or the exact location I wasn’t going to incorporate myself into the situation. I finally convinced her to go to bed, get some sleep and wait it out until she got a call back. She gave up waiting around 9am and called the police back again, this time being told that they hadn’t gotten all the calls out to let people know that the situation had been handled and that she should wait until she receives the confirmation call. Finally Saturday afternoon around 12:30pm she received the automated message. My mother felt a sense of relief but was still shaken when I spoke with her after she got the call. While I was on the phone with her there was a loud “Bang” outside her home, “I heard it through the phone” and she started to get scared all over again. This time she calmed down fairly quickly with some reassurance. Now I’m NOT saying all the facts should be given to the public at the time of the situation but after reading about the location of the incident on this page, I think some more information was required at the time to reassure residents and to “not instill panic”. As it turns out my mother lives not 1 or 2 but “8” blocks away from where the situation took place. She can’t understand why the woman on the phone made it sound as if she were directly in great danger and quote “very close” to the situation when in actuality she wasn’t close to it at all, and according to the updates on this page the issue was resolved at 1:01am but it took nearly 12 hours to get the call that it was ok for her to come out her confinement. This is just a suggestion, maybe next time the police could inform the citizens they call that they have a possible “fill in the blank” situation happening in the area of “fill in the blank” and that the police are on scene handling the situation but for their own safety it’s pertinent that surrounding residents’ remain calm and stay in their homes away from the situation till it’s resolved. Then have a faster response time informing the residents’ of the resolve. This won’t remove fear but it could possibly reduce panic and give people a sense of awareness for the gravity of the situation, and it would also reduce the number of calls I’m certain the police received from residents’ trying to get information.
well said Shannon ! With you 1000% on that one!!!
Those police should have personally gone door to door to tell the residents that all was ok as soon as the issue was resolved. Instead yet again, people rely on impersonal electronics to handle it for them and that is where I see the issue happened here.
Automated caller over 12 hours after the incident is not enough!
Grimalot I don’t think the cost of that makes any sense. Yes, there should be a better notification system. How about say when residents are notified originally they are told where to look to find out when the event is over?
For instance they could be told to look or contact their local media or the police website if power is available.
I’m thinking this instance might be a blessing in that perhaps more education could be done in the community as to what to expect and how to react to find things out in an emergency.
And of course all of the details of what went down Friday are still not in the public domain. There’s a press release due on Monday and we’re going to ask a police rep to be on our Seawayradio.com segment Tuesday morning.
I don’t think it would cost anything any different. Since they are already there to begin with. It’s just common courtesy. Get half the neighborhood all riled up and then send out an all clear 12+ hours later is unacceptable in my mind.
I agree with you in any case that better notification was required, instead of people cowering all night thinking a nuke is gonna go off…
Well my phaser is not set on “stun”
@ Grimalot – I think you REALLY need to take a step back. Do you honestly think going door to door while being asked questions by each and everyone at each door would be any better. Not to mention the fact that somebody dressed in dark clothing would be knocking at the door in the middle of the night. You talk about a phone call scaring people, think about somebody with a gun coming to the door scaring the hell out of everybody. You then have to consider that it would have taken many hours to do this, all the while the entire episode/incident or whatever it was may have been done and over with. Going door to door is not very practical use of time and a waste of taxpayer money.
Maybe the messages should have been a bit more re-assuring to the people effected. And only let them know that it is a precautionary measure. Again, please think about things before you go off like you have.
Dose of Reality needs a good dose of reality!
Regardless of what they did or didn’t do, they should have done it much earlier. That is the point. If not door to door, then something as soon as the situation was over. The story about the grandma above being scared all night is proof of that need.
You may not deem it necessary DoR, but that is just you. I don’t need to take a step back. People need to do their jobs properly, that is the issue at hand here.
Well i definitely believe that going door to door as grimalot would have liked is quite unpractical as dose as said, not that it matters to the taxpayer because in troubled situations like this the public must be warned, but it just simply wouldnt have cut it to go door to door, the people wouldnt have been warned in time. although phoning the public wasnt necessarily practical either, you see theres flaws to that… people move, therefore some people that dont even live in the troubled neighborhood were phoned, and newcomers to the neighborhood werent. and i for example live in this very neighborhood on where the commotion occured and was not phone because i have a cellphone, so i was never warned luckily i live in an appartment building and my super intendant was able to let us know, otherwise we would have had no clue. we could see the policeman but didnt really know the gravity of the situation so there we were hanging out on our balcony, when we should have been indoors. you see the situation occured at around 10 pm we only found out at 11 before we gotten the message.. now i agree that sometimes less information is better (yet everyone has a curious nature so it is normal to want to know everything that is going on in your community.. and theres some truth to that of course, but sometimes what you dont know wont hurt you) although whenever its in a situation where you can get hurt.. i believe it is important to know at least abit of whats going on. im not saying we need to know everything but at least abite to reassure us. all we found out is to the basement bring animals and family so we went down with our new born and dog cramped up waiting for updates. no one bothered to phone us we only found out because we noticed the policeman was gone. i dont care if you say that it takes time to inform people 12 hours is way to much ..with the amount of people to phone it is safe to say they delayed the phonings… whenever you receive a call from the city police saying to go to the basement and stay until all is over and you receive no more information its safe to say that you think of the worst. dont have to say exactly whats going on but dont need to make the entire town panic either especially for the sake of the elderly ..a call like that can be just enough to cause a heart attack.! its safe to say that a better plan should be made here incase of another situation like this.. we were definitely freaked to see the swat team get out of trucks and walk a few blocks down! but apparently we were safe which was hard to believe after having seen that.