Thread: Police: 'Gunman' holding 5 firefighters hostage in suburban Atlanta

Police: 'Gunman' holding 5 firefighters hostage in suburban Atlanta

By CNN Staff
updated 5:38 PM EDT, Wed April 10, 2013

(CNN) -- A "barricaded gunman" is holding five Gwinnett County, Georgia, firefighters hostage in suburban Atlanta, a police spokesman said.
The hostage situation occurred after firefighters responded to a residence in Suwanee, Georgia "for some type of medical call," Gwinnett County police spokesman Ed Ritter said.
Police later sent out a request to local TV stations telling them not to send helicopters over the area, in the interest of assuring the safety of those involved in the situation.
　
　
http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/10/us/georgia-firefighters-hostage/index.html

1 has been released. No Info on how or why yet.

T.V. News just said that SWAT took out the gunman. All of the firemen will be O.K.

Police kill gunman holding 4 Ga. firefighters hostage

USA TODAY

- ‎2 minutes ago‎

Gunman was facing eviction from foreclosed home. One officer was slightly wounded. suwanee hostage ga. A police officer holds a rifle as he walks near the scene where a man was said to be holding four Gwinnett County firefighters hostage in Suwanee, ...

Gunman killed after holding Georgia firemen hostage

USA TODAY

- ‎1 hour ago‎

Gunman was facing eviction from foreclosed home.

Gunman identified in deadly SWAT shootout in Georgia

After nearly a four-hour standoff, the gunman who took five firefighters hostage is dead.

Michael Winter, Larry Copeland and John Bacon, USA TODAY2:10p.m. EDT April 11, 2013


An investigator arrives at a damaged home in Suwanee, Ga. on Thursday, April 11, 2013 after Wednesday's hostage standoff. A man held four Gwinnett County firefighters hostage for hours before they where freed when police officers stormed the house Wednesday. Authorities said the firefighters encountered an armed man who demanded that his cable and power be turned back on at the house, which was in foreclosure. (AP Photo/Kate Brumback) ORG XMIT: GAJB102(Photo: Kate Brumback AP)


SUWANEE, Ga. — A man killed by a SWAT team after police said he held five firefighters hostage at his suburban Atlanta home was armed with a half-dozen guns and told his hostages that he targeted them so he wouldn't be shot, police said Thursday.
Gwinnett County Police Chief Charles Walters said Lauren Holman Brown, 55, faked an illness Wednesday to lure firefighters to the home with a 911 medical emergency call. When the firefighters arrived and approached the bed, Brown pulled out a handgun, Walters said.
Brown, who was armed with a half-dozen guns, demanded that utilities be turned back onat the house, a bank-owned repossession, Walters said. A few hours later, Brown opened fire on a police officer who entered a bedroom when SWAT members stormed the house, Walters said.
One police officer was slightly wounded in the exchange of gunfire. The firefighters suffered superficial injuries when officers detonated a flash-bang grenade as they entered, police Cpl. Edwin Ritter said.
A spokeswoman for Gwinnett Medical Center said the firefighters and the police officer were treated at the hospital; all had been released Thursday morning.
"The SWAT team commander believed their lives were in immediate danger and it was the time to go in there," Ritter said. "It's an unfortunate circumstance. We did not want this to end this way, but with the decisions this guy was making, this was his demise."
According to property tax records, the home where the firefighters were held hostage was foreclosed on last November. After the house was foreclosed on, the mortgage switched hands from Wells Fargo to Freddie Mac.
The house was being rented when it was foreclosed, but the FreddieMac spokesman did not know whether the renter was still in the house.
Fire Capt. Tommy Rutledge said one engine and an ambulance responded to the initial 911 call from a nearby station in Suwanee, about 35 miles northeast of downtown Atlanta.
"They arrived at the scene. They went in and began to do what they do every day when they were taken hostage," he said. The gunman allowed one firefighter to leave so he could move the firetruck.
The firefighters who responded were cross-trained as emergency medical technicians.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/04/11/georgia-shootout-swat/2074527/