A 46-year-old West Kelowna man was taken into custody by Mounties Thursday morning after area residents reported hearing a gunfire near a Boucherie Road home. He was released hours later, and now police are saying the sound may have been an air cannon used to scare away birds from nearby vineyards.
West Kelowna Mounties got a call Sept. 1 at 9:06 a.m. that a possible shot was fired in the 3100 block of Boucherie Road.
"Given the information provided to police at the time, several RCMP officers responded to the complaint and set up an area of containment, which included the closure of Boucherie Road between Montigny Road and Mission Hill Road. Police scoured the area from both ground and air," said Const. Jesse O'Donaghey, in a press release.
"Police learned of a potential source of the possible reported shot fired and attended a residence in the immediate area. RCMP quickly worked to make contact with the occupants of that property."
As a result of police attendance to the home, a 46-year-old West Kelowna man was taken into custody without incident. The man was later released unconditionally and without charge.
"The RCMP investigation is ongoing in effort to determine the source origin of the noise believed to have been a shot. Investigators are mindful of the common use of air cannons in area orchards and vineyards used to scare birds and have not yet ruled this out as being a possible explanation," said O'Donaghey.
11 a.m, Sept. 1
Mounties have taken one man into custody and re-opened the portion of Boucherie Road they closed for what appears to have been a successful manhunt.
Little information on the RCMP manhunt has been made available, but there has been speculation that it had something to do with a firearms incident.
The public became aware of RCMP activity when a plane repeatedly circled above a West Kelowna neighbourhood Thursday morning, starting around 10 a.m. Mounties then announced they'd closed down Boucherie Road between Montigny Road and Mission Hill Road or an incident, asking the public to avoid the area.
Nearby, Allison Place resident Weldon LeBlanc noted the plane circled around the area around 50 times this morning before flying away just before 11 a.m. He added that it wasn't too unsettling to his neighbours residents who were still walking and driving by, but not hiding away.
More information will be posted when the Mounties make it available.