As 2022 draws to a close, we’re looking back at the top 10 Burnaby news stories of the year.
Yesterday, we brought you the tragic story of two teens killed in a Burnaby crash after another driver was fleeing police. Today, we recap the year’s No. 7 story about an emotional end to a standoff at a Burnaby SkyTrain station in November.
Photographer captures incident
A Burnaby photographer captured the emotional end to a six-hour police standoff at the Metrotown SkyTrain station last month.
The photo shows a man surrounded by five tactical officers.
He hugs one of the officers, his head resting on the officer’s shoulder.
Const. Shaelyn Yang connection
Officers were dispatched to the station at about 5:18 p.m. on Nov. 13, after a man jumped into the guideway and began pacing along the tracks and screaming profanities, Metro Vancouver Transit Police spokesperson Const. Amanda Steed told the NOW.
At the scene, the officers learned the man, who struggles with mental illness, had been getting support from Burnaby RCMP Const. Shaelyn Yang, who was stabbed to death in October while on a call at a local park.
Yang had been a member of Burnaby RCMP’s mental health and homeless outreach team.
“He was getting the support he needed from this officer, and she was murdered,” Steed said of the man at the Metrotown station. “Obviously, when she was killed, he didn’t have that support into the mental health section that he needed, and he just kind of spiralled. That’s why he found himself out on the tracks.”
'They took the time to console him'
The female officer tried to engage the man with help from another officer at the scene who is a trained crisis negotiator, but the standoff continued to drag on.
For most of the incident, the man was precariously perched on a railing high above Central Boulevard.
The street had been shut down, as had the Metrotown, Patterson and Royal Oak SkyTrain stations.
After negotiations had gone on for several hours, police called in the Lower Mainland Integrated Emergency Response Team.
“They are highly trained in high-angle rescues,” Steed said.
The photo snapped by the photographer captured the moment after the man finally allowed the tactical officers to arrest him.
“They didn’t just rush in and put him in handcuffs. They took the time to console him. That’s what you’re seeing in that picture,” Steed said.
The man was taken to an area hospital, and no charges were being considered in the case, according to Steed.
