Kelowna Daily Courier:
RCMP had to call for backup to subdue a drunken man who went berserk at a West Kelowna police station, smashing windows and assaulting three officers. The 28-year-old man had been drinking for hours and suffered a manic episode at the Westside Community Policing Office at 7:20 p.m. Thursday. His wife followed him as he left their house nearby and walked toward the station, RCMP said. When she realized where he was going, she ran ahead and approached two male officers sitting in a parked cruiser outside the station. She told them her husband was bipolar and out of control, and that they should call an ambulance, said Const. Steve Holmes. As she spoke, her husband threw a rock at the cruiser, missing it. He walked up to the driver‘s open window and tried to grab one of the Mounties. As they grappled, the man picked up a hard object – likely the rock – and smashed it at least twice against the windshield, said Holmes. The officer backed up the cruiser to get away. The man walked to the station‘s main entrance and banged on the door. An officer inside, unaware of what had happened, opened the door.
The man grabbed him by the shirt. The officer brought up his arm as the man struck him. They wrestled until the officer got away and ran back inside to escape. The man smashed a window in the front entrance. The officers in the cruiser radioed for extra help. When another officer arrived, the three of them tackled the man and arrested him. Police placed him in custody at the Kelowna detachment. The door window was replaced by Friday morning, but shards of glass were on the pavement nearby. The cruiser window hadn‘t been repaired. Reece Anders Halverson of West Kelowna appeared in court Friday on three charges of assaulting a peace officer, break and enter and mischief. He was released with conditions not to consume alcohol or to possess weapons.
Thursday‘s incident was the second attack on an Okanagan-Similkameen RCMP office in a week. On April 17, a man broke into the Princeton RCMP detachment. He was armed with a handgun and damaged a parked police car before walking to a nearby service station. He later surrendered to officers, who said he seemed intent on committing suicide by having police kill him.
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