Junior High Student sustains athletic injury at school, waits ten years, then takes hostages

[vonVeezelsnider]

CALGARY - A suspect is now in custody after a harrowing hostage taking at A.E. Cross School in southwest Calgary.

Calgary tactical team members successfully negotiated with the 25 year-old man, taking him into custody shortly before 4 p.m. According to police, the man turned over his hostage on negotiations of a bottle of water.

According to police, the 25-year-old suspect had taken a secretary in her mid 40's hostage in the principal's office of the junior high earlier this afternoon. She suffered a leg wound and is receiving medical attention.

The man is a fomer student at A.E. Cross and 'apparently he suffered an injury some years back. He is blaming the principal for that injury and now he wants to talk to that principal," said Insp. Frank Reuser.

Also, hidden inside an interior office, was a 13 year-old boy who called his mother from his cell phone to alert her of the problem. His mother then went on to alert police. The boy is now safe and his mother has arrived at the school.

Children at the school were attending an assembly when the incident happened. They were escorted onto waiting school buses and taken to Glenbrook school.

Olympic women's curling team silver medallist Carolyn Darbyshire was at the school to address the pep rally on Thursday afternoon.

"The school did a really good job evacuating. The kids were really, really good," Darbyshire said.

Students inside the gym told the Herald that teachers addressed the assembly and said there was a dangerous man inside the school -- and that the event wasn't a drill.

Shelly Weeks arrived to pick up her child, who's in grade 8 at the school.

"My daughter called me in tears and cried 'Come get me.' I flipped over to the AM radio station and hear there was a hostage taking."

Her first reaction - "A hostage taking in our city?"

Calgary Board of Education said that all children who take the chartered bus service to school or who use Calgary Tranist have left Glenbrook School.

Students who walk to school are still in the gym at Glenbrook School and parents are asked to come and personally pick up their child.

According to student Stefan Gigovic, the school had practised hostage taking drills before "but we never thought it was going to happen."

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/student+allegedly+takes+Calgary+school+secretary+hostage+Olympian+addresses+students/2642833/story.html

This has got to be the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I mean I'm glad everyone is safe and all but, sheesh, someone was off his meds today. Take someone hostage at knifepoint over an athletic injury sustained in likely the eighth or ninth grade and then wait all these years... storm back into the school and take a secretary hostage... and then let her go in exchange for a bottle of water?

Just goes to show that no matter what some Canadians say, America does not have a monopoly on dementia.

[ShadowDog]

LOL certainly not. My wife lived and went to school in southwest Calgary. She'll raise an eyebrow at this, but not much more. It doesn't matter how alert or prepared a school can be, short of metal detectors to really make a student feel like school is prison, the stupid will figure out a way!

This is quite removed from the overall problem, but things haven't been all rosy with Calgary's growth.

[vonVeezelsnider]

I still can't get over the Smog, growing up the air here was so clean and then over the past years it just seems to have spiked.

People had trouble getting around yesterday because of this, they shut down all the streets in a three block radius which unfortunately includes, in this case both 36th Street and Richmond Road...

[Robert Hall]

That is seriously f'ed up.

[daves87rs]

That is seriously f'ed up.

Agreed.

[mustang84]

This reminds me of a man around here that gunned down his former high school football coach in the town of Parkersburg (the same town that was devistated by an F5 tornado in 2008). Parkersburg had one of the best high school football programs in the state and coach Ed Thomas was highly regarded. In the video below, his confession says he shot Ed because 'he was the devil.' He pleaded not guilty by means of insanity, but the jury recently found him guilty of first degree murder.

Edited March 12, 2010 by mustang84