HOULTON, Maine — A 21-year-old Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada man was charged with obstruction Monday in a Canadian provincial court following an incident that shut down the Woodstock-Houlton border crossing for about 12 hours last Friday.
Officials with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said in a written statement issued Tuesday that U.S. officials turned Bailey Roy, one of two men involved in the border incident, to Canadian officials on Sunday and that he appeared in Woodstock Provincial Court on Monday. He remains in custody and will return to court on Nov. 1, according to the RCMP.
The incident began just before 10:15 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 26, after members of the New Brunswick RCMP responded to a suspicious vehicle that had driven from Canada and stopped in the area between the Canada and U.S. border crossings. Two men inside the vehicle were refusing to communicate with Canada Border Services Agency officials or police.
The two men were taken into custody by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers about six hours later, after they drove their vehicle toward the U.S. border.
Bailey Roy was handed over to Canadian authorities on Sunday, but the second person, a 22-year-old man from Middle Sackville, N.S., remains in U.S. custody, according to the RCMP. The mounties did not release the second man’s name and indicated that the investigation is ongoing.
Officials from the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection have not responded to multiple requests for comment.
The border crossing was shut down for about 12 hours on Friday, disrupting traffic in both countries. Despite the arrest of both men at about 4:20 p.m., border officials did not reopen the crossing until about 10 p.m. to give investigators time to finish processing the vehicle and clearing the scene.
