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Friday, November 30, 2007

Hostage situation at Hillary Clinton's NH Office: UPDATE - Crisis Over, No one Injured

(Thread was moved here because of technical difficulties on other thread.)

[Update] Crisis is over, no one hurt.

Man had told his family earlier to watch the television today, so this was preplanned.

The mans name is Leeland Eisenberg. [End Update]

Hillary Clinton is not at that office but reports are saying a man walked into Hillary's NH office with what looks like a bomb strapped to his chest. That information came from a witness that called it in.

Authorities are standing by trying to deal with it and at the moment there are no injuries reported.

Bear in mind, just because it looked like a bomb to the witness doesn't mean it is real.

Hillary's campaign has no other details they say.

Fox is reporting.
A Clinton spokesman said that no one has been hurt.

It was unclear how many people were being held at the Main Street facility in Rochester.

Clinton was scheduled to speak at the Democratic National Committee fall meeting later Friday in Northern Virginia.


WMUR is also reporting on this:

"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.

There are several police officers positioned across the street from the office, crouched down behind cruisers with guns drawn, according to a reported at the scene.

"I walked out and I immediately started running, and I saw that the road was blocked off. They told me run and keep going," said Cassandra Hamilton, who works in an office adjacent to the building.

Nearby businesses have been evacuated, and the St. Elizabeth Seaton School has been locked down.


Television reports say there are sharp shooters on the roofs nearby.

Two campaign workers are being held hostage.

A Newt One is all over this also.

Latest... The man allowed a woman and her child to leave, there is also a hostage negotiator there and the mans stated reason is that he wants to speak with Hillary... fat chance of that.

More from WCVB here and here.

Police said a man in his 40s, with salt-and-pepper hair, is in the building and has what appears to be an explosive device strapped to his body, TV station WMUR reported.

MSNBC is also reporting.

More from the New Hampshire Union Leader and Rapid Report.

Malkin is also discussing this.

[Update] Witnesses were reporting that the assailant had flares, not a bomb, strapped to his body.

Fox tells us about previous situations at political campaign offices in the years past:

In March 1980, intruders claiming to be with the Puerto Rican separatist organization Armed Forces of National Liberation (Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional, or FALN) stormed the campaign offices of Jimmy Carter in Chicago and George H.W. Bush in New York.

They bound and gagged campaign workers in both offices, but left without injuring anyone after spray-painting nationalist slogans on the walls.

There have also been several non-fatal explosions at the campaign offices of other politicians, none of whom were running for president.

In June 2003, a pipe bomb filled with roofing nails exploded outside Calif. Rep. Loretta Sanchez’s campaign office in Santa Ana. Garden Grove resident Hai Duc Le, who was severely scarred in the incident, was sentenced to 21 months in prison for the blast. No one else was hurt, and authorities said at the time that the congresswoman was not a target.

In 1998, a soda-bottle bomb blew up outside Jesse Ventura’s gubernatorial campaign office in Minneapolis. Again police said they didn’t think the bombings were politically motivated, and no one was hurt.

And in 1994, then-Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson’s campaign office was also struck by a pipe bomb, but no one was wounded.

News is announcing another hostage has been released.

Seems the man has surrendered also, approximately 6 hrs after beginning, no injuries and no fatalities.



[Update] Another hostage released for a total of 5 all together being released.
Developing story....

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