 A deranged man claiming to have a bomb invaded one of Sen. Hillary
Clinton's New Hampshire campaign offices Friday, took a half-dozen
hostages - and kept cops at bay for five hours before meekly
surrendering.
A deranged man claiming to have a bomb invaded one of Sen. Hillary Clinton's New Hampshire campaign offices Friday, took a half-dozen hostages - and kept cops at bay for five hours before meekly surrendering.
When 47-year-old Leeland Eisenberg finally gave up, he stripped off the device he had taped to his waist - harmless road flares - then lay facedown on the street before heavily armed cops.
It was a dramatic ending to a five-hour ordeal that transfixed the country and forced the Democratic front-runner to cancel a speech for party faithful in Virginia.
It also cast the spotlight on a disturbed man with a history of mental illness and substance abuse who moved to tiny Rochester, N.H., from Massachusetts to escape a troubled past.
Clinton, who flew to New Hampshire from Washington to hold a press conference in Portsmouth, praised her staffers for their courage and "coolness under pressure" and thanked law enforcement for getting them out unharmed.
"This was a tense and difficult day for my campaign and me," she said. "It affected me not only because these were my staff members and volunteers, but as a mother. It was just a horrible sense of bewilderment, confusion, outrage, frustration, anger - everything at the same time. I am grateful it has ended so well."
Clinton said she kept the hostages' families posted on developments during the day, getting information from authorities by "what seemed like bugging them from minute to minute to minute."
She later met with the freed hostages and their families.
It was the first time in recent memory that hostages had been taken at a presidential candidate's office, and it prompted calls of concern from Clinton's rivals, including Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).
While cops drove Eisenberg to the lockup, CNN's Wolf Blitzer revealed that the hostage-taker had called the network's Washington bureau during the crisis.
Eisenberg, who reportedly had been drinking, told CNN staffers he had mental problems and couldn't get help. CNN kept quiet about Eisenberg's calls to avoid upsetting his talks with the hostage negotiator, a veteran female officer.
Police said he never threatened Clinton. During the siege, they said he asked for cigarettes, alcohol and Pepsi, but they were not delivered.
Divorce papers filed Tuesday indicated Eisenberg was arrested and charged with criminal mischief and violation of a protective order. In the papers, Eisenberg's wife, Lisa, said the divorce was a result of irreconcilable differences and complained that he suffered from "severe alcohol and drug abuse." He was scheduled to appear in court yesterday in a domestic violence case.
The ordeal began about 1 p.m. when Eisenberg - dressed neatly in gray slacks, a white shirt and a red tie - barged into the Clinton office, claimed to have a bomb and demanded to speak with the candidate.
"Everybody get down," the man said as the terrified volunteers hit the floor, witnesses said.
Eisenberg immediately let a mother and her baby go and slammed the door closed. The freed woman quickly alerted police.
"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,'" witness Lettie Tzizik told WMUR-TV.
"'A man has just walked into the Clinton office, opened his coat and showed us a bomb strapped to his chest with duct tape.'"
Soon after, heavily armed SWAT team members surrounded the storefront office on Main St. While sharpshooters clambered on the rooftops, hostage negotiators tossed a cell phone inside the office to persuade the man to let the captives go.
A little after 3 p.m., a woman with tears in her eyes raced out of the office and was hustled away from the scene by police. Seconds later, another person was allowed to leave.
Authorities dispatched a tactical bomb unit and evacuated all the businesses on the block, including Obama's campaign office two doors from Clinton's outfit.
While the drama unfolded, Clinton was in the Sheraton Premiere Hotel in Vienna, Va., preparing to address the Democratic National Committee. The Secret Service quickly hustled her out to waiting SUVs that took her to an undisclosed "safe location," a party source said.
Back in New Hampshire, negotiators kept talking to Eisenberg and around 5 p.m., the talks bore fruit when another woman was released.
Then, around 6:15 p.m., another female hostage walked calmly out of the storefront and into the freezing night.
Eisenberg emerged seconds later.
"It appears that he is someone who is in need of help and sought attention in absolutely the wrong way," Clinton said.
Several reports said Eisenberg had sued the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Boston and Cardinal Bernard Law in 2002, saying that he had been molested by a priest in the early 1980s.
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 flyers in unlocked cars warning motorists to lock their doors.
Clinton said she would not change her campaign plans as a result of the incident. (dailynews)
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