RCMP get the wrong man in ‘high-risk takedown’

Whitehorse police were involved in a very real takedown operation Saturday, prompted by what turned out to be a fake handgun.

Whitehorse police were involved in a very real takedown operation Saturday, prompted by what turned out to be a fake handgun.

Just before 10 p.m. Saturday, police received a call that a man had pointed a gun at a woman outside the 98 Hotel on Jarvis Street in view of several witnesses, RCMP spokesman Sgt. Don Rogers said today.

Police went to the scene and took into custody the first of several people to be detained that night.

“This person was able to provide police with a description and names of the suspect male, a companion and a vehicle,” Rogers said in a prepared statement.

The person, who was later released, “was involved, but they weren’t a suspect,” Rogers said.

The description was dispatched to all officers, as well as Citizens on Patrol teams.

Meanwhile, another witness contacted police to report seeing a man hiding something near a building on Strickland Street.

Officers went to the area and found a handgun-style pellet gun, according to Rogers.

Shortly afterward, police received information that the suspect vehicle was at the Fourth Avenue Petro-Canada station.

The RCMP conducted a “high-risk takedown,” according to the RCMP report, only to find neither occupant of the vehicle was the person they were looking for.

The driver and passenger “were briefly detained to confirm their stories and I believe they were released,” Rogers said today.

The mistake was the police’s, Rogers said, and not the result of bad information from the witness investigators detained at the scene.

Finally, police received a further tip that the suspect was back at the Strickland location looking for his pellet gun. Officers caught up with him there and arrested the man without incident, Rogers said.

Desmond McGinty, 24, of Pelly Crossing, is charged with the possession of a dangerous weapon, assault with a weapon, and using an imitation firearm in the commission of an offence.

The incident with the gun appears to be a personal dispute, Rogers said, and not an attempted robbery or other crime.

Alcohol appears to be a factor, he said.

He also noted that although the pellet gun is not a restricted weapon or technically a firearm, “in the eyes of the law, it is the same thing (as a real gun) in the commission of an offence.”