Man keeps cool after threats from armed stranger north of Regina

Dave Cripps kept a cool head Thursday, when he says a stranger threatened to shoot Cripps’ family after crashing into their yard north of Regina.

Cripps said his wife woke him up around 6 a.m., and told him to get his boots on so he could go check out a truck that was stuck on a small tree in their yard. He said the driver didn’t want to talk and told Cripps to get away from the truck.

Cripps didn’t know until later the man was armed with a gun.

“He did (have a gun) but I didn’t know that at the time. He did make a comment that, ‘Step up to the door here, be a man or I’ll shoot your wife and kids,’ ” Cripps told 980 CJME. “When I went out to check the plate number, that’s what happened.”

Even after hearing the threatening comment, Cripps said he wasn’t too concerned because, from what he could tell, the stranger wasn’t able to even get out of the truck.

“He wasn’t in any shape to do anything. He wasn’t getting out of his truck to see how he was stuck. I could have got my truck to pull him out or whatever, but he never asked,” Cripps explained.

After calling police, Cripps and his wife did what they were told. They locked their doors and waited in the basement while RCMP and emergency response teams quickly descended on their yard.

The RCMP reported the man was armed with a gun, but he was taken into custody without any threat to public safety. There weren’t any injuries.

“When we were in the house down in the basement, an officer came in and said, ‘You guys are really calm,’ ” Cripps said a few hours later. “Well, what else are you going to do?”

Cripps said he wasn’t particularly shocked or surprised by the situation.

“If he was in shape to get out of the truck, then it could have been different, but he just stayed in there and that was it,” Cripps noted.

In fact, it’s not the first time a driver has crashed into Cripps’ yard; it also happened years ago when he lived in the city.

He said he was happy with the RCMP response time Thursday and the dispatch calls to check to see if they were OK.