TPM Editor’s Blog

More Detail on Hostage Standoff

We’ve just gotten some very limited but telling detail on the end of that survivalist hostage standoff in Alabama. Police and FBI authorities raided the bunker and rescued the boy, who appears to be at least physically unharmed. The hostage taker died when the FBI agents moved in. Presumably the rescuers shot him during the raid, though this wasn’t stated explicitly. So possibly he took his own life as it unfolded.

Operationally just how that happened wasn’t clear. But the gist seems to be that hostage negotiators thought the situation was deteriorating rapidly and the hostage taker might be about to harm the boy. That’s when they moved in.

More news as we get it.

Josh Marshall

Josh Marshall is editor and publisher of TalkingPointsMemo.com.

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