CORNWALL, Ontario – By Thursday morning police were still trying to track down an individual who at one time officers thought had barricaded themselves in a Cornwall hotel room.
Cornwall police Const. Dan Cloutier said Thursday morning police still want to check on the individual’s wellbeing.
The Cornwall Emergency Response Team (CERT) was deployed after a man was thought to have barricaded himself in the Howard Johnson on Brookdale Avenue.
But at around 12:30 a.m. police entered the room and found no one was there.
“I can confirm we believed someone was in the room, but we found it to be empty,” said Cloutier.
At one point witnesses said police, some dressed in tactical gear, were using a loudspeaker outside the hotel, asking the individual inside the room to answer the phone.
Cornwall police Sgt. Trevor Butler told Seaway News the incident began at about 5:30 p.m.
By 10 p.m. police shut down traffic access to the area, including Brookdale Avenue from Ninth Street to Thirteenth.
Butler was not in a position to provide more details, but a source told Seaway News the incident began when an individual who was not staying at the hotel ran into the establishment and locked himself in one of the rooms.
What prompted the bizarre incident is still unknown.
“We’re concerned for his wellbeing,” Cloutier said Wednesday evening, before police realized the room was empty. “There’s more to this. There’s an investigation going on.”
Police later reopened access to Brookdale Avenue that was closed for a time during the incident.
