Heavily armed Mounties have apprehended a robbery suspect following a tense standoff at a Surrey bank that lasted roughly six hours Tuesday.
Emergency Response Team members in tactical gear entered the TD Canada Trust branch around 2:30 p.m., handcuffed a man in a checkered shirt and escorted him out of the building.
A crowd of onlookers applauded as the suspect, who appeared to be in his 20s or 30s, was taken away.
That ended a lengthy stalemate involving dozens of officers, including snipers, a negotiator and dog team members, as well as a police robot.
Fortunately, it doesn’t appear anyone was injured.
The situation started around 8:30 a.m., when several people reported a robbery at the bank, located near 72nd Avenue and King George Boulevard in a busy area of Newton.
When Mounties arrived, staff and customers had already been evacuated, but it took until the afternoon to determine whether a suspect remained on the premises.
“We have been attempting to communicate with anybody in the bank, if there is somebody in there, but so far without success,” Cpl. Scotty Schumann told reporters.
Police used loudspeakers and phoned into the branch in an effort to make contact, but never received a reply.
Witnesses told police the robber had claimed to be armed, but the RCMP has not verified whether that was the case.
As a precaution, Mounties blocked off a large area around the bank, which is surrounded by stores, restaurants and the Newton Wave Pool, to both pedestrians and vehicles.
With files from The Canadian Press
