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A man was holed up in the East Block for hours on Saturday, sparking first a lockdown and then an evacuation of staff.
An Ottawa Police Service robot is seen near East Block during a lockdown on Parliament Hill on Saturday. Photo by Spencer Colby /The Canadian Press
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A man who barricaded himself inside the East Block on Parliament Hill for hours was arrested late Saturday, the Ottawa Police Service said. The standoff ended “without incident” according to a social media post from the police service.
The man was not identified Saturday night and police gave no further details, promising more information Sunday.
In a Saturday afternoon post on X, the Ottawa Police (OPS) confirmed that a man had barricaded himself in the historic building just before 3 p.m. “There are no known injuries,” the OPS said.
But the incident led to a huge police response involving agents from the Parliamentary Protective Service, the OPS and the RCMP, who locked down the building and surrounding area.
Dozens of police cars surrounded the building and the stretch of Wellington Street in front of the Parliamentary precincts was shut down to traffic and pedestrians. Hill employees were not allowed to enter the parliamentary precinct.
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The East Block houses the offices of senators and their staff. As it was a weekend and Parliament is not currently sitting, the building was likely mostly unoccupied.
But shortly after the suspect burst into the office building, PPS issued a rare alert ordering senators and their staff to “seek shelter in the nearest room. Close and lock all doors and hide.”
The same order was sent to the Prime Minister’s Office and Privy Council Office staff in a building across to the street to do the same.
Roughly 15 minutes later, another memo ordered East Block occupants to evacuate, suggesting police quickly knew that the intruder did not pose a major threat to building occupants.
A tactical unit vehicle arrives in the Parliament Hill area during a security-related incident in East Block on Saturday, April 5, 2025. Photo by Paula Tran /Postmedia
Numerous tactical units and bomb-sniffing dogs were seen outside the East Block building throughout the afternoon.
Within an hour of the alert, police deployed what appeared to be a bomb disposal robot towards the building. Later, two more such robots were deployed, but it was unclear if they were ever sent into East Block.
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Ottawa Police Service officers enter a tactical unit vehicle near East Block during a lockdown security incident on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Saturday. Photo by Justin Tang /The Canadian Press
Nearly five hours after the incident began, police had still not shared information about the intruder’s identity or apparent motive. Nor did they say if he was armed in any way.
An Ottawa Police Service vehicle is parked at the intersection of Sparks and Metcalfe streets in downtown Ottawa to form part of a barricade for an exclusion zone resulting from a lockdown in East Block on nearby Parliament Hill on the evening of Saturday, April 5, 2025. Photo by Paula Tran /Postmedia
Ottawa police Insp. Mark Bouwmeester told reporters at around 7:30 p.m. that “the circumstances of this incident are considered suspicious,” but gave few details about what was happening inside.
“We’re currently in contact with the individual and our priority is to resolve this situation peacefully,” he said. “At this time there is no known injuries and we believe that the man is the only person inside the building.”
Saturday night, pedestrians and others mingled as normal on Sparks Street, just beyond the police cordon.
A worker walked outside D’Arcy McGee’s restaurant and bar asking if the live music echoing from speakers outside was too loud. It was turned off shortly after that.
But if you didn’t first look at Wellington, you would have been hard-pressed to notice something out of the usual on Sparks. A delivery worker was stocking items inside a café, a man walked his dog and groups of friends walked the strip or huddled outside to finish cigarettes or conversations as the standoff on the Hill was underway.
A view of Parliament Hill from the south side of Wellington Street during a security-related incident in East Block on Saturday. Photo by Paula Tran /Postmedia
With files from The Canadian Press
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