Two Clinton Campaign Hostages Released

[Moby]

http://www.wmur.com/news/14737868/detail.html

I really don't have enough information to comment on this issue yet.

Witnesses Say Man Has Bomb-Like Device Strapped To Chest

POSTED: 1:14 pm EST November 30, 2007
UPDATED: 3:12 pm EST November 30, 2007

ROCHESTER, N.H. -- Two hostages have been released from the Hillary Clinton campaign office in Rochester, police said, but it was unclear if there were any more inside.

An armed man took hostages at the office on 28 North Main St. Friday afternoon, and officials with the campaign said that there were two workers taken hostage in the office, but police have not confirmed that those were the only two hostages in the building.

The two hostages were released at about 3 p.m.

Clinton, who is not in New Hampshire, canceled a National Democratic Committee meeting in Virginia.

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.

Witnesses described the man as in his 40s with salt-and-pepper hair. There are several police officers in the area with guns drawn.

"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.

Police used a loudspeaker to announce to the hostage-taker that they were going to try to send a phone in so they could talk to him.

Nearby businesses have been evacuated, and students at the St. Elizabeth Seton School were moved to the Maple Street School, where they will be released to their parents.

Several elementary and middle schools in the areas locked their doors in what officials called a "soft lockdown." Children at the McLelland School, Maple Street School and William Allen School were only being released directly to their parents.

"There is an ongoing situation in our Rochester, N.H. office. We are in close contact with state and local authorities and are acting at their direction," an official from Clinton's campaign said in statement.

"Police are negotiating with someone in the building," said another witness, who did not want to be identified. "The police are notifying all the business owners on the street to evacuate. There are fire trucks behind the Hillary Clinton office."

"We are all disappointed that this would happen in our city. We are a quiet, friendly city," Rochester Mayor John Larochelle.

Presidential candidate Barack Obama also has an office in Rochester, and it has been evacuated. Staff members in John Edwards' office, which is a few buildings away, were also evacuated. There were no reports of any injuries. There were no reports of any injuries.

[Moby]

Very strange

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071201/ap_on_re_us/clinton_office_hostages_40
By BEVERLEY WANG, Associated Press Writer
22 minutes ago

ROCHESTER, N.H. - A distraught man wearing what appeared to be a bomb walked into a Hillary Rodham Clinton campaign office Friday and demanded to speak to the candidate about access to mental health care. The hostage drama dragged on for nearly six hours until he peacefully surrendered.

Shortly after releasing the last of at least five hostages unharmed, 47-year-old Leeland Eisenberg walked out of the storefront office, put down a homemade bomb-like package and was immediately surrounded by SWAT team with guns drawn. Clad in gray slacks, white dress shirt and a red tie, he was put on the ground and handcuffed.

Clinton was in the Washington area the whole time, but the confrontation brought her campaign to a standstill just five weeks before the New Hampshire primary, one of the first tests of the presidential campaign season. She canceled all appearances, as did her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and the security around her was increased as a precaution.

"Everything stopped, and it had to because we had nothing on our minds except the safety of these young people who work for me," Clinton told reporters shortly after the standoff ended.

She traveled Friday night to Rochester, where she thanked law enforcement officials for their help. She said she knew of no previous contact between Eisenberg and her campaign.

"It appears he was someone who needed help and sought attention in absolutely the wrong way," she said.

Rochester police Chief David DuBois said Eisenberg was being held on state charges of kidnapping and reckless conduct, and that federal charges were being considered.

According to police, the drama began shortly before 1 p.m., when the man walked into the office and peeled back his jacket to reveal what appeared to be a bomb duct-taped to his chest. He took several hostages, but let a woman with an infant go immediately.

Eisenberg had a hostage call CNN three times and spoke to network staffers during the standoff, CNN reported after the ordeal was over and all the hostages were safe. Eisenberg said he wanted help getting psychiatric care, but had been turned away because he didn't have the money.

"I need to speak to Hillary Clinton," CNN quoted him as saying. "Something's got to change. Ordinary people need help" with their insurance.

The network described Eisenberg as "well-spoken, articulate and impassioned about his cause" but increasingly agitated. His third phone call was laced with profanities, CNN said.

About two hours after the man let the woman and baby go, at least one other woman escaped from the office; two other hostages made it out later, the last about half an hour before Eisenberg surrendered, police said.

Not long after the surrender, which occurred shortly after 6 p.m., police maneuvered a robot to the hostage-taker's package and triggered an explosion to destroy it.

Witness Lettie Tzizik told television station WMUR of Manchester that she spoke to the woman who was released first and that she was crying, holding the infant.

"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," Tzizik said.

Heavily armed SWAT team members, protecting themselves with shields, called to the man over bullhorns and attempted to hand a phone into the office.

A law enforcement official confirmed to The Associated Press earlier that the suspect's name was Leeland Eisenberg, and that he was known around the town to be mentally unstable. The official declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the case.

Authorities believe the device strapped to the man's chest was made with road flares, not a bomb, the official said.

The office, in a town of 30,000, is one of many Clinton has around New Hampshire. The campaign said the people taken hostage were volunteers for the campaign.

Eisenberg walked into the office about a half-hour before he was scheduled to appear in Strafford County court with his wife for a domestic violence hearing, according to Foster's Daily Democrat in Dover.

Divorce papers filed Tuesday indicated Eisenberg was arrested and charged with criminal mischief, domestic related, and violation of a protective order. In the papers, Eisenberg's wife said the divorce was a result irreconcilable differences and complained that he suffered from "severe alcohol and drug abuse, several verbal abuse and threats."

Eisenberg also was arrested at least twice earlier this year, once for allegedly driving under the influence and once on two counts of stalking. The status of those cases was not immediately clear.

Eisenberg made local headlines in March when he held a news conference on the steps of Rochester City Hall to complain about a police policy of placing fliers in unlocked cars warning motorists to lock their doors.

"This is nothing more than a gimmick to get around the Constitution and go around in the middle of the night upon unsuspecting citizens in their own yard and search their vehicles," Eisenberg said.

Police, who said they were just trying to reduce theft from motor vehicles, changed the policy in response.

[LadyMod at scam.com]

Hostage-taker at Clinton office surrenders (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/12/01/whostage101.xml)
By Juliet Turner and agencies
Last Updated: 3:36am GMT 01/12/2007

A man claiming to be armed with a bomb took over one of US presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton's campaign offices for more than five hours yesterday before surrendering to police.

More on the 2008 US election

The man, believed to have a history of mental illness, walked into the New Hampshire office at around 1:00 pm local time, taking three women, a man and a baby hostage and reportedly demanding to speak to the former first lady.

Mrs Clinton, who was near Washington at the time of the incident, said after the drama ended that the tense standoff had been hard on her and her campaign.

"It's been a very difficult day, personally and emotionally," Mrs Clinton told reporters, adding that she had been in touch with the families of those being held hostage throughout the day.

"I'm so grateful this day has ended well," said the former first lady, who was due to travel to New Hampshire to thank law enforcement officers.

A young woman initially raised the alarm after fleeing the building with her baby almost immediately after the hostage-taker entered Mrs Clinton's office.

Witness Lettie Tzizik told local television station WMUR she spoke to the woman shortly after she fled the building to a nearby shop.

"A young woman with a six-month or eight-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," WMUR quoted her as saying.

Armed police rapidly arrived on the scene, with units setting up across the street while negotiators established communication.

The hostage-taker, named by police as Lee Eisenberg, released another captive around two hours into the standoff before giving up the last two around three hours later.

Live television images showed Eisenberg surrendering to police with his hands in the air before getting down on the ground, being arrested by armed officers and taken to a police vehicle.

He was later charged with several offences including kidnapping, police said, adding that the suspected bomb turned out to be several road flares strapped to his body with duct tape.

US media said that Eisenberg was well known locally, had a history of mental problems and wanted to draw attention to the state of psychiatric health care in the United States.

He had reportedly been scheduled to appear in court Friday for a domestic violence hearing and had previously spent time in jail. He was also believed to be going through a divorce and reportedly had a history of alcohol abuse.

Sherman Ejarque from The Governor's Inn in Rochester interviewed Eisenberg for a job as a dish washer earlier this year and told AFP the hostage-taker "seemed like a habitually unemployed drifter."

The incident came as campaigning for the 2008 White House race began heating up towards the first nominating contests in Iowa, just five weeks away on January 3, followed by the first primaries in New Hampshire on January 8.

Mrs Clinton, who was first lady during her husband Bill Clinton's tenure in the White House 1993-2001, has been riding high in the polls, but she remains a deeply polarising figure.

A New York senator and a veteran of the fiercely partisan war raging through US politics, she has in the past lambasted a "vast right-wing conspiracy" which she says has targeted her and her husband.

An object of anger since her husband's 1992 White House campaign, she has also provoked the ire of anti-feminists and conservatives, which is being whipped up again as she strives to be America's first woman president.

A USA Today poll in October gave Mrs Clinton a 53 percent favourable approval rating, compared to a 44 percent unfavourable rating.

And despite polls showing the race narrowing in key states ahead of the Iowa caucuses on January 3, she still leads nationwide in almost every significant opinion survey of the Democratic field.


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[Smurf-Herder]

I'm sure this wild card of an event will boost the sympathy vote for Hillary.

It certainly distracts from her recent bad press.

[Moby]

I'm sure this wild card of an event will boost the sympathy vote for Hillary.

It certainly distracts from her recent bad press.
I bet Fox News will use it to talk about how people want to kill Hillary.

In all of American history has anyone in America been demonized as much as Hillary? I can't think of a time when I watched Fox for more then 30 minutes in the evening without them bashing Hillary the past 3 or 4 years.

[Smurf-Herder]

I bet Fox News will use it to talk about how people want to kill Hillary.

In all of American history has anyone in America been demonized as much as Hillary? I can't think of a time when I watched Fox for more then 30 minutes in the evening without them bashing Hillary the past 3 or 4 years.

Actually, from what I've seen it's just been objective reporting - mostly on how she handles it, in regards to her candidacy.


Hilly does have a lot of baggage. More than any other candidate. She had many controversies in her husband's time in office. You can't ignore that stuff, when someone has been in the public eye for 15 years and now they're running for President.

[Little Red Dog]

I bet Fox News will use it to talk about how people want to kill Hillary..

Presumably by someone "planted" by her campaign.

In all of American history has anyone in America been demonized as much as Hillary? I can't think of a time when I watched Fox for more then 30 minutes in the evening without them bashing Hillary the past 3 or 4 years.

You've managed to sit through 30 minutes of Faux Noise? Dude, THAT is dedication to "fair and balanced" reporting! :bowdown:

[Little Red Dog]

Actually, from what I've seen it's just been objective reporting - mostly on how she handles it, in regards to her candidacy.


Hilly does have a lot of baggage. More than any other candidate. She had many controversies in her husband's time in office. You can't ignore that stuff, when someone has been in the public eye for 15 years and now they're running for President.

I'm not sure she has more baggage than Guliani or Romney. But her baggage is certainly more well known. At least so far. And I think that really has more to do with having been First Lady than her time in office.

Plus, honest to god, I think the fact that she is a woman who is as tough as any of the D.C. boys in the club scares the crap out of a lot of people. They just don't know what to do with a woman who can (and would) wipe the floor with them.

Personally, I wouldn't want to be on her bad side. :D

[LadyMod at scam.com]

Actually, from what I've seen it's just been objective reporting - mostly on how she handles it, in regards to her candidacy.


Hilly does have a lot of baggage. More than any other candidate. She had many controversies in her husband's time in office. You can't ignore that stuff, when someone has been in the public eye for 15 years and now they're running for President.

I guess if she wins we can expect Laura Bush to run in 8 years with George serving on FEMA or something.


Break the Bush/Clinton dynasty. Vote for someone else.



Lady Mod