A man claiming to have a bomb walked into Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign offices on Friday and took hostages, police and witnesses said.
The man had what appeared to be a bomb strapped to himself, said Bill Shaheen, a top state campaign official. He took two hostages, both volunteers, and released others, Shaheen said.
Witness Lettie Tzizik told television station WMUR of Manchester that she spoke to a woman shortly after she was released from the office by the suspect. The woman was carrying an infant, and crying.
”She said, ‘You need to call 911. A man has just walked into the Clinton office, opened his coat and showed us a bomb strapped to his chest with duct tape,”’ Tzizik said.
Clinton was not in the New Hampshire office on Friday. She was scheduled to give an address at the Democratic national committee meeting in Vienna, Virginia, but it was unclear if the address would go forward as planned.
Authorities were sending a tactical bomb unit to assist local police, and the area was evacuated, said Major Michael Hambrook of New Hampshire state police. A nearby school also was in lockdown.
The Clinton office is located in the downtown area in a strip of several storefronts.
Workers for Senator Barack Obama’s campaign office in Rochester also were evacuated, a campaign spokesperson said. The office is four doors away from Clinton’s. Staffers in John Edwards’s office, a few buildings away, evacuated as well. — Sapa-AP