Ottawa man, 50, charged in Rideau Centre robbery
Ottawa police have charged a 50-year-old man in relation to a downtown robbery that prompted a large police operation and shut down the Rideau Centre mall.
Police say the man entered a business inside the shopping mall and when he was confronted by security, he brandished a firearm. He was arrested "a short distance away," police said in a release. No one was injured.
Carlos Smythe has been charged with robbery and several firearms-related offences. Police say "there are no further safety concerns" related to the incident.
On Tuesday, officers with guns drawn could be seen outside the mall, including near the entrance to the Rideau transit station shortly after noon. Heavily armed tactical officers could be seen entering a mall entrance on Rideau Street.
Police urged people to avoid the area. A message sent to employees said the building was locked down due to an emergency.
Employees who hadn't been evacuated were instructed to lock down within stores and stay away from the doors. A later message to mall tenants said police would be sweeping the mall floor-by-floor and store-by-store.
The mall reopened later Tuesday afternoon.
"The police operation is now over but the investigation is ongoing," Ottawa police tweeted just after 3:30 p.m. A spokesperson for Cadillac Fairview, the mall's owner, said that the mall is again open for business.
"The Ottawa police have completed their onsite investigation and CF Rideau centre is now open for the remainder of the day," the statement said.Police earlier tweeted they responded to a shoplifting call with a "possible weapon," that one person was arrested and there was no threat to public safety, but then deleted the tweet.
Mall employee Duran Mohamed was inside when police arrived early Tuesday afternoon.
"All of a sudden I hear security just yelling, trying to get everybody to evacuate the store," he said. Police then came into his store telling customers to leave, he said.
Several witnesses earlier reported the power went out inside the shopping centre. Customers just inside an entrance on Rideau Street were told to leave and run west, toward Sussex Drive soon after police arrived.
Ottawa's LRT service was suspended between uOttawa and Parliament stations, but has since resumed.
It's the mall's first day open in more than three weeks. It closed during the 'Freedom Convoy' occupation of downtown Ottawa, causing employees to lose wages and stores to lose revenue.
"I just feel so sorry for the poor employees at the mall," said Julia Niblock, who was shopping at nearby Hudson's Bay. "It’s their first day reopening and it’s what, two hours before this happens? So my sympathies are really more with them.”
- with files from Matt Skube, CTV News Ottawa
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Three Quebec men from same family father hundreds of children
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
B.C. mayor stripped of budget, barred from committees over Indigenous residential schools book
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
OPP's mandatory alcohol screening during traffic stops 'not acceptable': CCLA
A spike in impaired driving-related collisions has caused Ontario’s provincial police to begin enforcing mandatory alcohol screening (MAS) at all traffic stops in the Greater Toronto Area -- a move one civil rights group says is ‘not acceptable.’
Auston Matthews to miss second straight playoff game with Toronto Maple Leafs facing elimination
Auston Matthews will miss the Maple Leafs' must-win Game 6 against the Boston Bruins.
Jurors in Trump hush money trial hear recording of pivotal call on plan to buy affair story
Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.
Southern Alberta store broken into by burly black bear
Staff at a small southern Alberta office supply store were shocked to find someone had broken into the business last week, but they were even more confused when they discovered the culprit was a bear.
Captain sentenced to 4 years for criminal negligence in fiery deaths of 34 aboard scuba boat
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in custody and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel.
New scam targets Canada Carbon Rebate recipients
Fake text message and email campaigns trying to get money and information out of unsuspecting Canadian taxpayers have started circulating, just months after the federal government rebranded the carbon tax rebate the Canada Carbon Rebate.