Clutha armed stand-off: Police surround house, negotiating with man inside

“The situation is contained and there is currently no risk to the public,” police said shortly before 9pm yesterday.

There was large police activity in the area, which is largely rolling hills and farmland, this morning.

Donald ‘Mack’ McIntosh, who lives in Tawanui near Owaka, told the Otago Daily Times about a strange encounter with someone he believes in the man at the centre of the stand-ff.

He said that late on Monday night a van came up his driveway and a man wanted petrol.

“I just thought to myself, the sooner [he’s] gone, the better,” McIntosh told the ODT.

“He seemed just an affable, quite likeable sort of guy with a story that just didn’t gel.”

The following morning, McIntosh told the ODT, he drove past the man’s van lying on its side on a winding section of a road near Tawanui and saw a police officer removing “about a dozen” rifles and firearm bolts from it.

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