Cops surround Jorgenson Hall, Parkdale man charged
By Sonja Rasula
Metro Police stormed the Ryerson campus last Thursday after an angry listener threatened to walk into CKLN with a gun and start shooting. But the threat turned out to be a hoax in a bizarre afternoon for the campus radio station staffers.
Shortly before noon, CKLN music director Joanne Gairy received a call from a man asking to speak to the program or station directors, but neither were available. Gairy said the caller demanded air time.
“He became very upset and personal, saying the station was limiting his access,” she said. Gairy attempted to reason with him, but he refused to listen. Forty-five minutes later, police informed Ryerson security that they got a warning from the caller’s father saying the suspect was armed and on his way to Ryerson’s campus. An evacuation of CKLN offices followed. The Emergency Task Force surrounded Jorgenson Hall, standing on rooftops and ledges of nearby buildings waiting for the gunman to show. Officers also blocked off the lower Jorgenson Hall area and all entrances to the basement.
Metro Police Sergeant Nigel Fontaine said the large police presence was justified. “We take this kind of thing (gun threats) very seriously.”
The crisis ended at 2:15 p.m., when police apprehended the suspect in a Parkdale neighbourhood on two counts of threatening death and one count of public mischief. Charged was 64-year-old Bhimsen Samnotra.
Strangely, police say the suspect and his father turned out to be the same person and Samnotra called in his own arrest.
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