A man accused of sexually assaulting a woman at a SkyTrain station was brought into custody Tuesday after Transit Police and Vancouver police confronted him on a restricted area of the SeaBus terminal near Waterfront Station.
Around 7:30 a.m. on June 6, Transit Police responded to reports of a man yelling and waving a stick around, according to a release from Transit Police. Officers recognized the man as a 47-year-old suspect wanted on an arrest warrant for a sexual assault.
As officers arrived, the man entered a restricted area of the ferry terminal that was a narrow catwalk close to the water. As attempts to de-escalate the situation went poorly, officers deemed the situation risky for themselves as well as the man involved.
Eventually, a Transit Police negotiator convinced the man to leave the space he was huddling in. He was taken into custody by Vancouver Police Marine Squad Emergency Response Team members safely.
"I congratulate our negotiator on a job well done in de-escalating the situation," Barry Kross, deputy chief of the Transit Police, said in a release.
The sexual assault charges stem from an incident in February, when the man allegedly grabbed and kissed a woman who was waiting on the platform of the 22nd Street SkyTrain station. She pushed him away and left to pick up her daughter, but when she returned to the station some 20 minutes later and boarded a bus she found the man sitting beside her.
The man allegedly tried to grab her daughter's leg as she tried to exit the bus. Another passenger helped her off the bus and she went home to call police.
The suspect is scheduled to appear in court on June 15.
