Hostage Situation at Clinton Office in N.H.: this bitch has too many enemies
By The New York Times
4:20 p.m. MSNBC is reporting that the son-in-law of the suspect walked into a restaurant and while he ordered coffee, told witnesses that his father-in-law had gone to a hardware store and bought roadside flares.
4:10 p.m. Mitt Romney’s campaign released a statement saying they have asked all the campaign field offices to “lock all exterior doors and be on alert for any suspicious individuals.”
“We’ve also reminded all Romney campaign employees in Boston and across the country to be cognizant when entering or exiting staff offices so as not to allow anyone into offices who is not authorized.”
“Everyone is keeping those involved in the situation in our thoughts and prayers right now as well, with hopes of a safe resolution.”
3:42 p.m. WMUR-TV in New Hampshire is reporting that two hostages have been released from the campaign offices, but it is unclear whether there are still hostages inside. According to the Associated Press, at least one hostage remains in the building.
ABC News reported that the suspect is a man who is known locally and has a history of mental illness. The network also reported that the man had
told his son today, “Watch the news.”
The suspect has not been identified publicly and there is no information available on his son.
3:35 p.m. The Rochester police received a call shortly after 12:30 p.m. alerting them to a possible hostage situation, according to Captain Paul Callaghan. It took only a short time to realize the threat was real and the Rochester Police, as part of a routine procedure, contacted the neighboring Dover and Durham police departments for assistance.
The New Hampshire State Police bomb squad unit was also called in to help deal with the situation.
The streets around Mrs. Clinton’s headquarters were sealed off and the area evacuated, including St. Elizabeth Seton School, which includes children in grades 1 through 8. Captain Callaghan said buses were arranged to transport the childrten and they were all cleared out within the last half-hour.
“We have stabilized the situation in the area around the office,” Captain Callaghan said.
He would not comment on reports that one hostage had been freed or how many remained in the building.
Original post, updated | 3:26 p.m. A man claiming to have a bomb strapped to his chest walked in to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign offices in Rochester, N.H., today and took hostages, police and witnesses said.
Senator Clinton was not in the building at the time. She was scheduled to speak at the Democratic National Committee meeting in Vienna, Va., afternoon, but she canceled that appearance after receiving the reports that at least two volunteers were being held captive.
Bill Shaheen, a co-chairman of Mrs. Clinton’s New Hampshire and national campaign, said in a telephone interview at 2:40 p.m. that the two hostages are both staff members in the Rochester campaign office, one of 16 offices that Mrs. Clinton has around the state.
Mr. Shaheen did not know the names of the two people.
He said that there had been no threats of violence against campaign offices of Mrs. Clinton herself in New Hampshire. “We’ve had no security issues, and I’m not even sure this is a threat to her, to my knowledge,” Mr. Shaheen said.
Mr. Shaheen said that the campaign’s New Hampshire spokeswoman, Kathleen Strand, was en route to Rochester to talk to authorities and the media gathering there. Mr. Shaheen was speaking from Boston and said he was leaving for Rochester shortly.
He said he had no knowledge about the apparent request of the hostage-taker to speak to Mrs. Clinton, or whether Mrs. Clinton would do so. The campaign released a statement on its Web site.
Clinton advisers said that Mrs. Clinton was monitoring the situation from a location in the Washington area; one adviser said he believed that she was at or heading toward the campaign headquarters in Arlington, Va. Another adviser said the campaign had been in touch with authorities in New Hampshire to confirm the details that had been reported in the media thus far. This adviser said the campaign was trying not to overtax the authorities with phone calls or information requests. “We’re letting them do their jobs,” this adviser said.
Rodney Doherty, editor of Foster’s Daily Democrat, the major newspaper in the Rochester area, said in an interview at 3:15 p.m. that his reporters
had yet to confirm the identity of the hostage-taker, but that they were pursuing one particular lead. “We’re focused in on a fellow who has been a problem in the past,” Mr. Doherty said.
While cable news stations have been showing tape-delayed footage of the scene in Rochester, with police moving around the building, Mr. Doherty said that his reporters currently see police standing by in the area.
A young woman, possibly one of the hostages, was apparently released shortly before 2 p.m., as the high profile drama on Main Street in Rochester played out via television.
The officers, weapons drawn, then backed slowly away a few yards from the entrance of office in a small red-brick building.
Moments later, a woman emerged.
She walked slowly at first and then ran, with an officer by her side, to safety behind an armored vehicle.
The cable stations showed the footage on tape delay, likely not broadcasting live for security reasons.
At the D.N.C. meeting in Virginia, Democratic national chairman Howard Dean made the announcement in a hotel ballroom, gasps were heard from the crowd of several hundred delegates and party officials.
“Details are sketchy at this time,” Mr. Dean said. “We will keep them in our prayers and hope for a resolution of this situation.”
Mrs. Clinton was scheduled to appear before the D.N.C. meeting this afternoon. Her rivals, Senator Barack Obama, former Senator John Edwards and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson addressed the crowd this morning.
Mrs. Clinton had already arrived here at the Sheraton Premier Hotel at Tysons Corner when reports of the hostage situation began to trickle in. She was in private meetings in the hotel, officials said, when the decision was made that she would not address the D.N.C. It was not for her own security reasons, officials said, but rather out of a concern for her staff in New Hampshire and she wanted to go monitor developments.
When Mr. Dean made the announcement that her speech had been canceled, dozens of her supporters wearing “Hillary” shirts who had arrived for her speech began to leave.
Robert Gibbs, a spokesman for Senator Barack Obama, said the Rochester offices of the Obama campaign — only a few doors down from the Clinton campaign — also had been evacuated, along with other businesses in the area. The Obama staff members were fine, he said.
As he addressed the D.N.C. this afternoon, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware commented on the incident, saying he heard about it as he was driving out here. “I pray to God it all works out as she heads to New Hampshire,” Mr. Biden said.
According to reports from WMUR-TV and the Union Leader, two workers taken hostage in the office on 28 North Main St. A woman and her baby told workers at a neighboring business that she was released by the hostage-taker.
“A young woman with a 6-month or 8-month-old infant came rushing into the store just in tears, and she said, ‘You need to call 911. A man has just walked into the Clinton office, opened his coat and showed us a bomb strapped to his chest with duct tape,’” witness Lettie Tzizik said.
The woman said a man with pepper-and-salt hair in his 40s with what appeared to be a bomb duct-taped to his chest had entered the office and ordered everyone onto the floor, Ms. Tzizik said.
There are several police officers positioned across the street from the office, crouched down behind cruisers with guns drawn, according to a reporter at the scene.
“I walked out and I immediately started running, and I saw that the road was blocked off. They told me to run and keep going,” said Cassandra Hamilton, who works in an office adjacent to the building.
Nearby businesses have been evacuated and schools have been locked down.
Patrick Healy, Jeff Zeleny, Marc Santora, Katharine Q. Seelye, Ariel Alexovich and Michael Luo |
