A man who was the subject of an emergency alert in the Halifax area over the weekend is facing more than a dozen charges, including attempted murder, after a woman was shot in South Farmington, N.S. Annapolis County District RCMP responded to a report of a shooting in the 2000 block of Old Mill Road around 7:20 a.m. Saturday. Police found a 31-year-old woman with life-threatening injuries at the scene. She was taken to hospital. Officers learned the woman had been shot by a man she knew and that he had fled the area in a damaged Mazda 3. “While searching for the Mazda, East Hants District RCMP observed the vehicle in the Rawdon area and attempted to conduct a traffic stop,” said the RCMP in a news release Monday. “However, the driver failed to stop and fled at a high rate of speed.” Halifax RCMP later found the vehicle in the Beaver Bank area and followed it toward Lower Sackville. Police deployed a tire deflation device to try and stop the Mazda, but say the driver managed to avoid it. The RCMP engaged its air services, which monitored the vehicle from the sky as it travelled into Bedford. Police say the Mazda tried to drive along a hiking trail behind the Bedford Highway, but it crashed when it struck a tree around 10:40 a.m., and the driver then fled on foot. Police believed the driver was armed so they issued an emergency alert in the Bedford area around 11:30 a.m. The alert warned residents of a “DANGEROUS MAN with firearm” on foot in a wooded area behind the Sunnyside Mall. The alert expanded to include the Halifax Regional Municipality at 12:15 p.m. The RCMP arrested the man a short time later, with assistance from the RCMP Emergency Response Team, Halifax Regional Police and police dogs. The emergency alert was cancelled just before 1 p.m. CTV News Atlantic camera operator Valentine Nkengbeza captured the man’s arrest while interviewing a witness at the scene. “There he is! Oh my God, they got him,” bystanders said while noticing the arrest happening behind Stewart. “We got ‘em, boys.” Ryan Alexander Cole, 36, of Annapolis County, has been charged with: Cole was scheduled to appear in Digby provincial court on Monday. Police say the firearm believed to have been used in the shooting has not been found. ‘Mall should have been locked down’ In the wake of the incident, some employees at Sunnyside Mall in Bedford are expressing concern over how the situation was handled. The female employee did not want to share her identity but said she was “disappointed” by the mall’s management of the situation. “After we received the first alert, we had locked our doors and we phoned the security in the mall and they told us that they were given the go-ahead to be open and that the mall was secure so we could open our doors again,” she told CTV News Atlantic. “It was scary. We felt that we were being told things were safe. But, looking back on it, we realized we really weren’t safe and that things should have been handled a lot more efficiently than they were. We feel the mall should have been locked down. The main mall doors never were locked during the whole situation.” The general manager of Sunnyside Mall declined a request for comment. With files from CTV News Atlantic’s Vanessa Wright For more Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page
