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Victoria police news In Brief for Nov. 8

Bear spray assault downtown, garbage fires investigated
9306353_web1_Victoria-fire

Security guard assaulted

with bear spray

VicPD is seeking the suspect of an assault after a security guard was attacked with bear spray in downtown Victoria Tuesday night.

Police arrived at the 700-block of Johnson Street shortly after 8:30 p.m. having receiving a call about an assault in progress.

The suspect is described as a 60-year-old Caucasian man about 5 foot 10 with a slim build, short grey hair, wearing a light blue and grey jacket with jeans.

The victim said the man was “smoking something” leading up to the altercation.

String of garbage fires

leads to arson investigation

Victoria police are investigating the cause of five separate fires Tuesday night downtown. Arson is suspected.

Victoria Fire Department Deputy Chief Dan Atkinson said it was the largest cluster of fires in a short period that firefighters had seen in some time. Four of the five fires were in garbage cans, and the fifth was at Mustard Seed on Queens Street, where garbage and the back of the building were burned. Only the exterior of the building caught fire.

Two engines, a ladder, rescue, and command vehicle attended the scene of the Mustard Seed fire around 2:30 a.m. Wednesday.

Atkinson said the department was tied up putting out these fires from midnight to around 3 a.m. As of yet, the cause is uncertain.

“Any time there’s a fire that occurs absent of a known accident ignition point … if a fire simply starts in the middle of nowhere, it begs the question how it started, and usually the answer to that question is that it was human contributed,” Atkinson said.

lauren.boothby@vicnews.com