THUNDER BAY – City police say it was the sound of gunshots that led them to descend on a Heron Street home on Wednesday night.
In a follow-up release issued on Thursday afternoon, police say three people have been arrested in the incident, which began at 6 p.m. after a male and female were drinking alcohol inside an apartment inside a residence in the 100 block of the south-side neighbourhood.
A disagreement ensued and a 21-year-old male took a gun, believed to be a rifle, outside, where he allegedly pointed it at a neighbour who was returning home.
The male and female returned inside and the gun was discharged.
Thunder Bay Police Det. Alan McKenzie called it a tense situation for everyone involved.
"When we got there we immediately heard a shot fired again and we were able to identify the subject residence at that time," McKenzie said. "Police immediately began to contain the area and started evacuating neighbours from the area for their own safety and tried to make contact with the subjects.
"Shortly after that we realized this call had escalated that incident command, negotiators, scribes, a containment team and the emergency task unit were called out. At that time we were unable to make contact with the subjects. There was no movement."
Police at that point began employing a number of techniques, while trying to deal with another obstacle that presented itself.
"Members of the public were attempting to move into our inner perimeters to try to get shots of what was going on and use Facebook and Facebook Live to show what was happening. This, of course, raised our concern because all of our officers were in a heightened state of awareness at that point and trying to infiltrate our perimeters is extremely dangerous to our officers, to the subjects coming toward us, as well as the people we're trying to save," McKenzie said, adding it's not possible for police to simply walk up and knock on someone's door during a firearms incident.
"That wouldn't end well for anyone."
At 9:07 p.m. the two suspects exited the residence and surrendered to police, who conducted a search and confirmed it was vacant.
"It definitely makes us happy that we can solve this in short a short period of time," McKenzie said. "As time goes on, there's more tension, there's more opportunity for people to get injured. So the quicker we can resolve them the better."
During the search police located a long gun, ammunition and a compound bow, which were sitting in plain view.
A more thorough search for more weapons was conducted when a search warrant arrived.
As a result, the owner of the apartment was also arrested.
Twenty-year-old Laurita Oshkineegish was charged with breach of probation.
Caleb Koostachin, 21, has been charged with pointing a firearm, Reckless discharge of a firearm, and possession of firearm while prohibited and Terence Hudson, 26, the owner of the apartment, has been charged with careless storage of a firearm and breach of probation.
All three appeared in court on Thursday and have been remanded into custody.None of the charges has been proven in a court of law.
