TORONTO — A police operation to arrest a man in a murder investigation involved leaving him locked on a Toronto region transit bus with dozens of passengers for nearly half an hour in what's being described as a "harrowing" experience for those on board.
The incident took place on a GO Transit bus that was pulled over on the side of a major highway late Thursday night.
Anne Marie Aikins of Metrolinx — the agency that runs GO Transit — said passengers spent 25 minutes locked inside a GO bus with a man that police later took into custody.
Passengers said they heard police inform the man that he was wanted for second-degree murder, Aikins said.
Durham Regional Police, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment, issued a statement saying a 53-year-old man was arrested after being identified as a person of interest in a homicide investigation and named in a warrant for an assault charge.
Aikins said many of the passengers on board the bus have voiced concerns about how things were handled.
"I'm sure they expected a sleepy ride into the city and instead had a very harrowing experience that clearly is still upsetting them today," she said. "That's really quite unfortunate. Some information would certainly have been helpful to them, but decisions get made and I'm not sure of the rationale for the decision."
Police say the arrest took place on Thursday around 11 p.m. as the bus was travelling from Hamilton to Toronto's Union Station, a major hub for travel in and out of the city. Officers from provincial police and Hamilton police made the arrest on behalf of the Durham force.
Aikins said the bus was driving down a major highway when a number of cruisers appeared and pulled the driver over.
The driver was instructed to get off the bus and lock the door, keeping passengers inside, she said.
Over the next 25 minutes, as more armed officers arrived on scene, Aikins said passengers reported a man acting erratically on board the bus.
They said the man, who they believed to be intoxicated, tried unsuccessfully to get off the bus. When that didn't work, he reportedly sat down at the front of the bus and lit up a cigarette to the consternation of fellow passengers, Aikins said.
The man was ultimately arrested without incident.
Some passengers on board the bus took to social media at the time of the arrest to voice their displeasure with the situation.
"Why lock us in the GO Bus for 25 minutes with a man charged with murder, realizing it's gameover..?" one person tweeted.
Police have not released the man's name, nor identified the homicide in which he is a person of interest, but said more details will be coming in the case.
