Residents wake to shirtless man scaling balconies on Saskatchewan Drive apartment building
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At first it was just a pair of legs dangling from the balcony above.
But soon, an entire man materialized on Emily Thomson and Cayman Alexander’s fourth-floor apartment balcony.
The appearance of a shirtless, agitated man about 8:30 a.m. Sunday provided a startling wake-up call for the young couple who live in a north-facing apartment building on Saskatchewan Drive.
“We just woke up to shadows and noises outside our balcony,” Alexander said, speaking outside the building as police officers stood nearby taking statements from other residents.
The man, who was swearing and talking to himself, was hanging off a metal pole that runs the entire height of the 11-storey building and is affixed to the centre of each balcony. Thomson and Alexander watched as he shimmied down from the unit above, past them, and onwards down the building. The couple said they think he entered one of the suites directly below them since there is a significant drop between the lowest balcony and the ground.
“I’m just wondering where the hell he came from,” Alexander said.
The couple weren’t the only residents to get a shock Sunday morning.
Up on the sixth floor, a woman opened her eyes to see the man grasping the pole in the centre of her balcony, rocking back and forth and shouting.
Autumn, who declined to give her last name, lives in a bachelor suite and has her bed facing the balcony.
“I definitely panicked … I was calm outwardly, but it doesn’t make me feel great to wake up to something like that,” she said. “You feel like you’re pretty safe, but seeing something like that makes you question it.”
She ran from her suite and her next-door neighbour let her inside his unit. They called police, who arrived quickly, she said.
She said she recognized the man as someone who hangs around the building, but doesn’t believe he is a resident. She and her neighbour were both very relieved the man didn’t fall from the balcony.
Just before 9 a.m., several officers caught up with a shirtless individual wearing shorts on the east side of the building. He was arrested and placed in a police vehicle. An ambulance pulled up and met the police a short time later.
Edmonton Fire Rescue also responded after getting a call to respond to Capital View Tower at 10711 Saskatchewan Dr. because of a person out on a balcony shortly after 8:30 a.m.
However, when they arrived minutes later to assist police, the person had already gone inside the building, spokeswoman Kristi Bland said Sunday.
How the man gained the access to the balconies of the 11-storey building remained a mystery Sunday as the Edmonton Police Service southwest division watch commander declined to give any information about the case.
However it happened, Thomson and Alexander said it’s been a wake-up call about leaving their balcony door unlocked.
“We often don’t lock it because we don’t think anything is going to happen,” she said. “We’re definitely going to lock it now.”
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