What started out as a routine-sounding call led to a chase across streams, through farmers’ fields and swamps in the Breslau area, just east of Kitchener, Wednesday morning.
And to make matters even stranger, the person sought by police was clad only in his underwear.
Around 4:15 a.m., police were called to a Woolwich Street address in Breslau.
“As police approached the residence … a male fled the residence on foot,” Waterloo Regional Police spokesperson Olaf Heinzel tells CTV news.
Police pursued the shoeless man, joined in their search by a canine unit and focused on the area around Fountain and Menno streets – an undeveloped piece of land comprised mostly of fields and forest.
Scott Miller, who lives a few doors down, says he heard noises in his backyard around that time.
“I heard branches breaking and someone going through the woodlot,” he says.
“Within minutes, there were police officers out front.
Around 5:30 a.m., emergency responders with night-vision goggles were brought in to help detect exactly where the man was in an area dense with swamps.
Police closed Fountain Street for a couple of hours as the search continued.
“We at that point became very concerned for the male’s well being. He was dressed very scantily, in only his underwear,” says Heinzel.
A woman who works in the area tells CTV News she found the man around 7:30 a.m., offered him assistance and was told in return that he had been left in the field by friends as part of martial arts training.
She says he was picked up by his mother about an hour later.
As of 3 p.m., the suspect had not been located.
“The purpose of the search … really was the well being of the male himself, but it’s eventually going to lead back to the initial call. That’s the part that’s still under investigation,” says Heinzel.
