A heavily armed man took five firefighters hostage after luring them to a suburban Atlanta home with a fake 911 call for medical attention Wednesday afternoon, officials said at the scene in Suwanee, Ga. One of the firefighters was released unharmed about an hour after being taken captive.
Live video from the site of the hostage-taking, via WXIA-TV news in Atlanta.
According to Capt. Thomas Rutledge, a fire department spokesman for Gwinnett County, Ga., members of the police department’s SWAT team were attempting to negotiate with the man, who had barricaded himself in the house in a subdivision in Suwanee.
“This is a very fluid situation,†Captain Rutledge said. “We don’t want to do anything to cause this to take a negative turn.â€
Captain Rutledge said that the firefighters had no idea they were being set up when they received the call. He did not specify the nature of the medical call. He said the firefighters had not been injured.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the house, a large single-family home on a leafy block, is across the street from Collins Hill High School. It is about 35 miles northeast of downtown Atlanta.
On Dec. 24, four firefighters were shot and two were killed when they responded to a call in Webster, N.Y., by a gunman who then shot and killed himself.
