Edmonton police say the gunman at the centre of Wednesday's hostage drama at the offices of the Workers' Compensation Board had no intention of leaving the building alive.
A police negotiator talked to the man, who was holding nine hostages, and continually encouraged him to free the hostages and surrender peacefully.
Police Insp. Neil Dubord said the gunman had several emotional outbursts, but the hostages remained calm during the 10-hour ordeal.
This allowed the negotiator to successfully talk the alleged gunman down.
"At the start of this (the gunman) was very clear that he had no intention of leaving the WCB building alive," Dubord said at a news conference.
"But as the day progressed, and through the work of the hostage negotiator, he was able to convince (him) to leave peacefully and bring a successful conclusion to this incident."
Officers spoke to witnesses who say that they spotted a man hanging around the WCB building at around 8 a.m. on Wednesday.
About 30 minutes later, a gunman walked into the building and fired a single shot against a wall. After firing, the suspect ordered several people to get into the elevator and ride up to the eighth floor, police say.
According to CTV Edmonton, the gunman grabbed an employee's access card and used it to unlock the elevator. The standoff began after police received a 911 call.
Shortly after the standoff began, one hostage was released because of a medical issue.
The police tactical unit and officers from the local division evacuated hundreds of people from the building Wednesday after they received the 911 call.
Police convinced the gunman to release the hostages one by one, until he surrendered later in the day. No one was injured.
Still, the standoff lasted until about 6:15 p.m., when the suspect surrendered to police.
On Thursday, Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach ordered police and the government to review the incident, to help prevent something similar from happening in the future.
Patrick Charles Clayton, 38, is facing a number of weapons charges and nine counts of unlawful confinement.
He is scheduled to appear in court Friday morning.
Jennifer Dagsvik, a WCB spokesperson who was not on site when the incident began, told CTV News Channel that about 700 employees work in the nine-storey building, including case managers and claim adjudicators.
"Our employees know what to do in a case of something like this, but this is just such a rare, rare occurrence," Dagsvik said Wednesday afternoon.
However, in 1993, a similar situation occurred at the WCB's Calgary offices when a disgruntled worker claimed that the board had treated him unfairly.
Nobody was seriously injured in the incident and it ended after a 4 � hours, when the hostage taker passed out from taking painkillers.
