The man, a father, entrenched himself on Wednesday around 11 a.m. in his home in Olmweg in Merendree, a sub-municipality of Deinze. According to sources, he sent his ex-partner, with whom he reportedly recently broke up, a video showing him armed and masked.
The emergency services were immediately notified and came en masse to the scene. The man was alone in his home the entire time. The house and the actions of the man were constantly monitored with a drone. Special forces spent hours trying to convince the man, who would have been heavily intoxicated, to surrender. That was about 3 p.m. He came out of the house and surrendered on his knees. After a check-up in the ambulance, he was transferred to the commissariat, where he will be questioned further. The police will still search the house. The weapon he showed in the video would have been a lead shotgun.
Due to the incident, traffic across the bridge on Olmweg was temporarily completely halted. In the meantime, traffic can continue again.