Ottawa – Police arrested a man at gunpoint just steps from Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Thursday, underscoring tensions in the capital Ottawa a day after a gunmen killed a soldier and rampaged through parliament.
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Harper and his wife were laying a wreath at the National War Memorial to commemorate the killing of the soldier there when police, shouting and with guns drawn, surrounded a man and ordered him to the ground.
Ottawa Police said the man was arrested for “disturbing the crime scene” at the war memorial. It was not immediately clear what was the man’s intent.
“He crossed the tape. We told him not to. He didn’t listen,” said a police officer at the scene.
The tense moment, captured on camera and seen by throngs of people and politicians who had gathered at the war memorial, highlighted tensions in Ottawa a day after a reported convert to Islam fatally shot a soldier there and raced through Parliament before being killed himself.
Harper himself was pulled back from the crime scene after he and his wife briefly lifted the crime scene tape and attempted to lay flowers, and then reversed themselves and laid their wreath outside the crime scene.
Tighter security was evident all over the sprawling parliamentary zone in downtown Ottawa. Armed Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officers stood outside the door where the gunman, identified as Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, rushed in on Wednesday.
The flag flying over Parliament’s Center Block, where the gunman had burst in on Wednesday morning, was at half mast.