A hostage drama ended peacefully on Tuesday after the gunman who briefly captured the principal at a high school in New York State surrendered following police negotiations, a local official said. "He is in custody, he has given himself up. No gunshots fired," said Gregg Pulver, town supervisor in Pine Plains, speaking on CNN television.
"The students are safe. We have a good outcome." The gunman was an adult who had attended Stissing Mountain High School in the 1980s, Pulver said. The short stand-off began at the start of the school day in Pine Plains, about 90 miles (144 kilometers) north of New York City.
Police, including heavily armed SWAT officers, quickly locked down the school and none of the approximately 500 students and 100 other staff were at risk. "They have him isolated. The students are in their classrooms, are locked down. You know, there are police in the building," Pulver said during the crisis. The incident initially prompted fears of the kind of extreme violence periodically erupting in US schools, universities and other crowded establishments.
Last Thursday a US army major opened fire on his own comrades, killing 13 and wounding 42 others at Fort Hood in Texas. On Friday, a disgruntled man shot one person dead and wounded five others at the office building in Orlando, Florida, where he used to work. The identity of the gunman was not immediately made public, but Pulver told CNN it was a former student.
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