Grenade terror in a busy Glasgow street

A TENSE stand-off between armed police and a man who barricaded himself in a flat brought one of Glasgow's busiest thoroughfares to a standstill for eight hours yesterday.

• Shoppers pass what appear to be grenades lying in the street. Top: the suspect is led away after a stand-off when officers trained weapons on the second-floor flat Picture: Wattie Cheung

The incident ended peacefully when police led a man away from the flat in Dumbarton Road in the Partick area of the city.

During the stand-off, objects thought to be grenades were thrown from one of the windows of a block of flats on to the street below.

The siege began when police arrived at the scene at about 7:30am yesterday and set up a cordon round the tenement block. No-one else is believed to have been in the property with the man; 12 people were evacuated from the tenement.

A Royal Logistic Corps bomb disposal truck was parked outside the police tape.

At one point at least ten armed officers with riot shields and battering rams were seen entering the building. One police officer was viewed using a telescopic mirror to look into the property from a flat above, while officers were seen training their weapons on the second floor.

One woman standing at the police cordon, who said she was in the area visiting a charity shop and did not want to be named, said: "We saw these grenades being thrown out of a window.

"I think one landed on the roof of a bus shelter. There are three on the ground. I'm shocked. It's frightening."

Acting on concerns about whether or not the man was armed, police prevented pedestrians from walking along the south side of Dumbarton Road and closed shops within 200 metres of the second-floor flat.

The road remained closed into the evening, as forensics continued their examination of the property.

The funeral procession of well-known local man Bill Cranston, which was due to pass through the centre of Partick, was diverted because of the road closures.

Superintendent David Donaldson, the officer in charge of the operation, said the man's actions caused enough concern about the risk he posed to officers and the public to justify deploying armed officers and closing down part of the West End, which he said had caused "significant disruption" to traffic throughout the day.

"It was a necessary step but it's not a decision we took lightly," he said. "I'm sure the premises that have been closed will have lost hundreds, possibly thousands of pounds, but at the front of my mind is the safety of the public."

He was unable to confirm last night whether or not the objects thrown from the window had been live grenades.

Irene Walker, 61, manager of The Rosevale pub, which was closed because of the operation, said: "We have lost a day's trade, but it's just one of those things. There's nothing the police could do about it, so we just had to be patient."

Hairdresser Fiona McLeod, 44, said: "This would normally be a busy day for me. It's really the last thing this area needs."