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Posted by: kwflatbed

CHICAGO - Two women were taken hostage inside their Chicago apartment building early Thursday, sparking a police standoff that stretched more than six hours on Thanksgiving morning.

The women were being held by at least one unidentified gunman who fired at police at least once, and officers were negotiating with the suspect by phone, police spokeswoman Monique Bond said.
The standoff in the city's South Shore neighborhood began about 2 a.m. after a 911 call about gunshots in the building. The police department's hostage barricade terrorist team responded, and officers surrounded the three-flat building, police said.
No injuries were reported, Bond said. She described the female hostages as young adults, but did not know their ages or relationship to the gunman.

South Side Hostage Standoff Ends With 2 Dead

Situation Lasted All Day Thanksgiving

Video: http://cbs2chicago.com/video/?id=27916@wbbm.dayport.com

(CBS) CHICAGO A hostage standoff in the South Shore neighborhood that lasted throughout Thanksgiving Day has ended with the gunman and a female hostage dead.

The standoff began early Thursday after an armed man took two young women hostage in their apartment building, at 6924 S. Jeffery Blvd.

It appears that the gunman shot the hostage and then himself, police said.

"At no time did the Chicago Police Department fire a weapon," said first deputy superintendent Dana Starks at a press briefing.

Starks said it appeared there was only one hostage, not two as officers had believed.

Police SWAT team members entered the apartment just after 1 a.m. Friday after officers heard a shot fired, Starks said.

Inside, police found both the gunman and his hostage gravely wounded. The two were transported to a hospital and later pronounced dead, Starks said.

"Based on what we normally do at that time, our SWAT team forced entry into the apartment, and upon entry into the apartment, that’s when they observed the offender and the victim," Starks said.

The gunman is identified as Lance Johnson, 21. The hostage is identified as Tasha Cook, 22.

Authorities believed Johnson was armed with a semiautomatic weapon.

"He shot at me, chased my old lady out the back and shot at her," said one victim in a firsthand account of what transpired.

Police responded to a call that shots had been fired about 1:30 a.m. Thursday.

Other residents of the building fled with officers' help as SWAT teams took up positions in what would become a daylong siege. Late Thursday afternoon, police called for him to give up.

"They're going to get you everything you need come out and just cooperate with them that's all," said the suspect's sister in a plea to him.

Police surrounded the building, which sits among brick houses and apartment buildings in the city's residential South Shore neighborhood. Authorities also closed several blocks and surrounded the scene with yellow police tape while neighbors set up tables of food for the dozens of law enforcement officials that were waiting nearby.

One woman says her 22-year-old niece was taken hostage.

The woman says her niece talked to another relative yesterday. When asked if she was OK, the young woman reportedly replied, "Not really" and hung up.


(© 2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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Posted by: kwflatbed

Ill. police: Gunman was unpredictable

By SOPHIA TAREEN, Associated Press Writer


AP Photo: In this photo provided by family, Tasha Cooks is seen in an undated photo. Cooks,...

CHICAGO - The gunman was calm one moment and frantic the next. For 23 hours on Thanksgiving Day, police said, officers tried to pacify Lance Johnson — who had a history of mental illness and a criminal record — and persuade him to release his neighbor Tasha Cooks, whom he'd taken hostage in an apartment building.

The standoff ended early Friday when Johnson, 21, fatally shot Cooks and then himself, leaving Cooks' family to question whether police did enough to save her.
It began around 1:30 a.m. Thursday, when Johnson apparently became irritated by a noisy child in the building, then became "combative," police said.
He fired shots at a door in the building, but no one was injured, police spokeswoman Monique Bond said. Six people thought to be in the apartment with the child fled.
Around 2:30 a.m., Johnson took Cooks hostage in her second-floor apartment.
Then everyone — police, family, neighbors — began to wait.
As the standoff dragged into the night, Cooks' frustrated relatives yelled at officers over the yellow tape that cordoned off several blocks in Chicago's South Shore neighborhood, demanding police act more swiftly to rescue Cooks.
But police said Friday that Johnson was unpredictable. He hadn't taken his medication and he threatened to kill Cooks, they said. He also told police he had two hostages when he only had one.
"He was going in and out of different behaviors, which is why the situation was never stable," Bond said.
Police said they negotiated with Johnson by phone. At one point, they delivered cigarettes and soda at the gunman's request.
Cooks used the apartment's phone to call her great-grandmother earlier in the day, family members said. Her brother Donzell McKinzie, 23, said she told them she was being beaten by her captor.
"That was the last time I heard ... her, and she said she didn't want to talk anymore," McKinzie said.
SWAT team members rushed the apartment when they heard a gunshot around 1 a.m. Friday, police said.
Johnson was arrested in 2002 for unlawful possession of a weapon and had a lengthy criminal history, Bond said.
An autopsy on his body was planned for Saturday, officials said.
His family, who helped police with the negotiations, asked not to be named and declined to give details about him.
Cooks' family said she was a nursing home worker who often took care of her 14-month-old brother, Darrell.
"She was a very bright young lady and very caring," said her aunt, Sherry McKenzie. "Right now, I don't even have the words. I'm still worked up about the situation. ... I really would like to know what happened, really."

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