There are over 10,000 hostage situations in America every year. Many of them are resolved peacefully but thousands are not. It’s obviously a serious and potentially deadly issue that can play out in so many unpredictable ways it’s hard for anyone to know how to proceed.
While movies and TV shows can make everything look simple, the truth can be anything but. And some hostage situations have gone so far off the rails that no one ever could have guessed how they were going to play out.
10. A Man Took a Radio Station Manager Hostage and Demanded a Kermit the Frog Song
Hostage taking often comes as a result of desperation or cruelty, depending on the situation. Sometimes it’s used as a tactic to try to achieve a goal. Maybe a bank robber will take a hostage to try to ensure their own safety so they can get away. For one man in New Zealand, the purpose of taking the manager of a radio station hostage was about as murky as reasons could get. He wanted to hear the Muppets sing The Rainbow Connection, and he wanted to hear it for 12 hours.
The 21-year-old man was not identified in the media, but he entered a New Zealand radio station claiming to have a bomb. As he barricaded himself inside with his hostage and police cordoned off the neighborhood, the man wanted the world to know how he felt and ordered the song played on repeat.
The whole event was cut short when police were able to take him into custody and we may never know why he felt Kermit’s song from The Muppet Movie expressed his true feelings. The bomb he claimed to have turned out to be a fake.
9. Notorious Criminal Charles Bronson Let a Hostage Go For Farting
To many people in North America, Charles Bronson was an action star who achieved most of his fame through the Death Wish film series. There is, however, another Charles Bronson out there that people in the UK are more familiar with. This Charles Bronson was an infamous criminal known for being especially violent and brutal. He became almost a folk hero and even had a movie made about him that stars Tom Hardy.
Bronson was initially incarcerated for armed robbery, however he spent decades in prison because of his violent nature when he was behind bars. There, he would attack other inmates and take hostages on more than one occasion. His motives are usually hard to understand, seeing as once he took hostages and demanded an inflatable doll, helicopter, and a cup of tea to release the person.
Arguably the most bizarre incident involving Bronson and his hostage taking was when he took a librarian hostage and then released the man because he farted in front of him, which Bronson found disgusting.
8. Kenneth Lamar Noid Took 2 Domino’s Employees Hostage Because of Noid Commercials
The story of the Noid, the weird claymation mascot of Domino’s Pizza back in the ’90s, sounds pretty goofy until you get the full, tragic story as it related to one man who had some unfortunate mental health issues.
If you don’t remember the Noid, he was a strange sort of rabbit eared character who really wanted to ruin your pizza experience. So to “avoid the Noid,” as they said, you had to order Domino’s? Unfortunately, a man named Kenneth Lamar Noid became convinced that Domino’s was targeting him specifically with their ads.
Kenneth was so upset by commercials featuring the Noid character that he eventually went to Domino’s location and took two employees hostage at gunpoint, trying to convince the company to stop specifically targeting him in their commercials which is something he felt was happening.
The employees managed to escape because Noid ordered a pizza and then sat down to eat it. He was taken into custody and it seems like the story should have ended there, but unfortunately Noid was plagued by the belief that these commercials were out to get him and eventually took his own life.
7. During a Deadly Hostage Crisis Reporters Asked Hostage Takers to Pose with Their Guns Against Hostage’s Heads
The relationship between the media and the news they report on has always been a strange one. In recent years, the line between the two getting blurred has become more and more of a concern to the point where sometimes you need to wonder if news is being reported or if it is being created. There are few cases where this was more of a serious issue than back in 1988 in West Germany.
Known as the Gladbeck Hostage Crisis, the incident started when two men robbed a bank in Gladbeck. The police response was bungled to say the least, and they ended up providing a getaway vehicle for the two men more than once. After nearly a day of holding employees at gunpoint, the two men took the car, two hostages, and the money they robbed from the bank and drove away. They even managed to stop to pick up the girlfriend of one of the two robbers.
They drove to another town and somehow hijacked a bus full of 30 people. The police detained the girlfriend, and in retaliation one of the bank robbers shot a 15-year-old hostage. They left with a bus full of hostages, transferred to a car and cut down to two hostages, and fled again.
At their next stop the press swarmed their car. They were taking photos and asking questions while hostages in the car had guns on them. With cameras rolling, in footage you can still find today, one of the reporters notices that there’s a gun not being used and asks if it wouldn’t make for a better shot if the gunman picked it up and put it to the hostage’s head.
In the end, another of the hostages was still shot before police could bring the man into custody.
6. A Hostage Taker Stormed Discovery Channel Because He Hated Their Programming
If you spend any time on social media, then you know people on the internet have some seriously angry opinions about TV. you can get people arguing for hours, even days, over TV shows and movies. Many times these will escalate into violent and angry name calling as well. People just take their entertainment way too seriously.
In 2010, this grew well out of control when one man broke into the Discovery Channel headquarters and took hostages because of how much he hated the shows the channel was airing. And sure, lots of people complain about reality tv, but most of those complaints don’t end in fatalities.
James J. Lee had a history of publicly causing trouble for Discovery. Two years prior he staged a protest against the shows Kate Plus 8 and 19 Kids and Counting. But in 2010 he crossed a line and took two employees and a security guard hostage for hours, demanding Kate Plus 8 be taken off TV. Part of his issue was the belief humans were destroying the planet and, since those shows promoted large families, they were doing more harm.
Lee was armed with a gun as well as several explosives that were designed to go off if he was shot by police. A robot had to be used to disarm some of the devices.
5. John II of France was Taken Hostage, Released, Then Voluntarily Returned as a Hostage
Most people have some kind of individual sense of honor, to a greater or lesser degree, that determines how they’re going to act in any situation. Historically, codes like this were a little more important to a person and could have a greater influence on the actions they took in day-to-day life. Such was the case with King John II of France.
In 1355, England and France were at war. In 1356, England had overcome the French forces and King John was taken prisoner. By 1357, he was being held in London. It wouldn’t be until 1360 that he was finally ransomed and returned home. However, France did not have the money to pay the ransom so instead additional prisoners were taken. King John was exchanged for his own son, amongst others.
Maybe the story would have ended there, except John’s son managed to escape after he was taken into custody. For whatever reason, John felt this was a dishonorable move, since his son was meant as payment for himself, so he turned himself back over to the English once again.
4. Muhammad Ali Negotiated the Release of 15 Hostages in Iraq
Every once in a while a professional athlete will offer up their opinion on something to do with politics or world events. Many times people will tell them to stick to what they’re good at, meant as an insult. But Muhammad Ali proved that professional athletes can make a big difference when he saved 15 hostages back in 1990.
The regime of Saddam Hussein took 15 Americans hostage after the Gulf War. Ali traveled to Iraq, amidst heavy criticism, to speak with Hussein in person. He was successful as well, and secured the release of the men. His efforts would later result in George Bush giving him the Medal of Freedom. This was also not Ali’s first time dealing with hostage negotiations, as in the mid 80s he had gone to Beirut to negotiate for the release of four American hostages.
3. A Woman Held Hostage by Her Boyfriend Used the Pizza Hut App To Get Help
Cheryl Treadway was taken hostage by her boyfriend in 2015, along with her children. In need of help and fearful for her safety and that of her kids. He confiscated her phone and held them all hostage with a large knife. At some point Treadway managed to convince her boyfriend that they needed to eat, and she could order pizza using the Pizza Hut app without having to talk to anyone. So he let her do it.
In the space where you’re allowed to leave a note in the ordering app she wrote “911 hostage help”. The order taker at Pizza Hut could see that something was wrong, and the police were called, saving Treadway and her children.
2. Residents of Love Canal Took the EPA Hostage
You may have heard of the town of Love Canal, the infamous site of a toxic waste dump. Many of the local residents complained of severe, long-lasting health conditions as a result of this toxic waste that they didn’t know existed. The story of what happened has been considered the kicking off point for the modern environmental era.
The issues suffered by these people were catastrophic. It wasn’t just getting sick; they were suffering chromosome damage. This was serious stuff. After it was discovered, several hundred families were compensated, their homes were purchased by the government, and they were able to relocate. But hundreds more were considered to be outside the danger zone, even though they were also suffering ill effects.
Because the government wasn’t listening to their concerns, they resorted to the extreme measure of kidnapping two EPA officials. Police arrived to discover hundreds of residents armed with 2x4s protecting their hostages. They explained that the men wouldn’t be treated poorly, but they were not going to be let go until the government listened.
The hostage situation lasted 5 hours, but over 700 residents had their homes purchased by the government soon after, which is what they wanted.
1. A Hostage Taker’s Mom Showed Up and Beat Him
In a movie it’s always exciting when the hero shows up and gives the villain their comeuppance. Do we have heroes in real life to do this? Sometimes. In the case of Amos Atkinson, the hero was his mom.
After firing a shotgun at police, Atkinson took 30 hostages at a restaurant in an effort to force authorities to release his friend from custody. Police contacted his mother to act as a go-between to communicate with him. She showed up and started beating her son with a handbag. Humiliated and unable to proceed, Atkinson let the rest of the hostages go and was arrested.