Emergency responders arrested several armed men
From dead chickens to armed men, the ERT had a busy year
An ERT armoured vehicle responded in July to reports of a gun in an Aldergrove home. The call turned up nothing.
Photograph by: Langley Advance , files
A man armed with a gun faced down an Emergency Response Team in Aldergrove, in one of several alarming incidents that brought out a heavy police presence during the past year.
On July 10, at about 6 a.m., armed police confronted a man with a handgun near a home in the 3000 block of 271st Street.
Wearing latex gloves, the man reached under his jacket while officers with guns drawn stood 30 feet away. He pulled out a pistol and threw it away, and was arrested without further incident.
Two men were arrested. Less than a week later, the ERT was back, this time on an apparently bogus tip about guns in a house near Fraser Highway and 268th Street.
Fraser was closed for several hours while the ERT brought in numerous officers, and their armoured vehicle, but no one was arrested and no guns discovered. In August, there were another resulted in the ERT being called out.
Slade Berggren, 20, was charged with unlawfully discharging a firearm and use of a firearm during an offense after neighbours reported that shots were fired Aug. 14 near 269A Street in South Aldergrove.
Corey Spitters and his son-in-law run farms on 269A Street in South Aldergrove.
In the early morning hours of Aug. 14, Spitters's son-in-law found that a breaker had been flipped in his barn, shutting off the ventilation system.
Two floors of specialty Taiwanese chickens were virtually wiped out, with 11,000 to 12,000 birds per floor.
Spitters's son-in-law suspected vandalism, and headed down the street to confront the man he believed was responsible.
It was then that Berggren allegedly fired the shots, at least one hitting the farmer's pickup truck.
Aldergrove was not the only community to see visits by the ERT.
On March 29, an alleged shoplifting at the Army and Navy in Langley City resulted in a massive police search. After store security saw a man pocket a propane torch, he pulled what appeared to be a gun, then ran off.
Police including Langley RCMP, ERT, and Police Dog Services tracked him down and negotiated until he came out of his apartment and was arrested.
The ERT also helped arrest Langley residents in Surrey, including a man accused of driving a stolen vehicle across a school yard, and the man charged with attacking a bus driver and passenger.
