IIO investigating man's death after police standoff in Dawson Creek, B.C.

Police say a man is dead after an hours-long standoff with police in Dawson Creek, B.C.

Dawson Creek RCMP say in a statement that officers went to a house on 10th Street to enforce an arrest warrant around 11:45 p.m. PT Saturday.

The man whom they were looking to arrest had a weapon and refused to leave the home, and three women who were also in the home were able to leave safely, according to police.

The man barricaded himself in the house overnight, and police say they brought in crisis negotiators.

Police say they tried to negotiate with the man to surrender, but "on two separate occasions there was an exchange of gunfire." Officers went inside the building around 8:25 a.m. PT Sunday and found the man dead.

A statement from the Independent Investigations Office of B.C. — the province's police oversight agency — describes the incident as a "police-involved shooting."

It says the office will "seek to confirm the details of police actions during the incident and what role, if any, they may have played in the man's death."

Police say no one else was injured.

Latest violent crime reported in city

Sunday's police-involved death prompted a lockdown of the nearby streets for hours. It is the latest of three violent crimes recorded this month in the city of about 13,000 people.

On Nov. 16, a 37-year-old Indigenous man was found dead in a home at the 600-block of 106th Avenue.

North District Major Crimes unit says his death is being investigated as a homicide.

Two weeks before that, on Nov. 4, police say two people were found wounded after neighbours reported hearing gunshots, followed by screaming, at the 800 block of Watson Crescent. 

Police say a man and woman suffered gunshot wounds, and were reported to be in stable condition in hospital.

Dawson Creek is a city in northeast B.C. in the Peace River region, located about 260 km northeast of Prince George adjacent to the B.C.-Alta. border.