A police raid on Forest Avenue in Orillia Friday night left residents in the south-end neighbourhood frightened and upset.
“I’ve never been so terrified in my life,” a nearby resident said in a Facebook post.
She reported her teen-aged kids were in the backyard of her home when one of the fleeing suspects ended up in her backyard.
“We heard shots and I was grabbing my kids and he fell into my backyard,” she said. “I looked at him and watched him run. After that, we were on our kitchen floor for like 10 minutes.”
She said a trail of blood ended down the street in “a large puddle.”
The area resident described the scene: “There was SWAT everywhere ... REAL guns, full-on camo.”
She was upset neighbours were not warned about the “planned raid.”
“They had time enough to plan a take-down. The safety of the surrounding neighbours should’ve mattered,” she said.
OPP Sgt. Jason Folz said there were multiple reports of gunshots. However, he said there were no gunshots.
“As far as neighbours claiming to hear gunshots … there weren’t gunshots,” Folz told OrilliaMatters Saturday morning. “It’s a use of force item we utilize from time to time that is less lethal, but does have a bang.”
He said ‘less lethal force of use items’ used by police include batons and tasers.
When pressed, he said in this case, a weapon that shoots hard plastic rounds that sound as “loud, almost, as a 12-gauge shotgun” was used.
“We’re not trying to hurt people, but if they don’t want to comply, for everyone’s safety in the neighbourhood, sometimes, we have to go to these kind of options,” said Folz.
If the suspects complied, if they didn’t resist arrest or attempt to flee, the tactics wouldn’t have been required, he said.
While a suspect was injured, the injury was not “grave.”
“Someone was injured, but it didn’t meet the threshold that (the Special Investigation Unit) would say, ‘We’re coming to investigate.’ That tells you how minimal the injuries were based on those use of force options we have access to.”
Folz said he could not disclose the number of suspects nor why police were executing a warrant at the Forest Avenue residence.
He said the OPP’s K9 unit, the emergency response unit and tactics and rescue units attended the Forest Avenue address.
Folz said the OPP deployed “a large number of officers, so if things do go bad and people don’t want to comply with what we’re asking of them, then we’ve got backup for our people and it can be done in a safe way for everybody: us, the neighbours and suspects, really.”
He said he understands the concerns of neighbours.
“Neighbours don’t fully understand what went on, so that’s part of the issue,” said Folz.
“At the end of the day, we accomplished our mission. Everybody was safe, no one was gravely injured and we were successful.
“Sometimes those things can look fairly scary to people who are not used to seeing them,” Folz added. “This is, unfortunately, sometimes how we have to do business.”
Folz said he is hoping to have more information - including the reason that sparked the warrant in addition to the names of the suspects - later today.
