Children taken hostage in French pre-school

Children taken hostage in French pre-school

www.huffingtonpost.com

PARIS — Officials say a 17-year-old armed with swords has taken several small children and their teacher hostage at a pre-school in eastern France.

A police official and an official with the city hall say the hostage taking occurred Monday morning in the city of Besancon. The officials were not authorized to be named according to their office policy.

The police official said five of the children have been released.

(visit the link for the full news article)

I'll post more as it comes in....this is being reported as breaking news on Sky too if anyone has the news on.

Any hostage situation is not good, but when it involves tiny kids, i just cringe. I picture my own kids when they were that little and think about how scared they would be.

I am hoping that the fact that the young hostage taker has already released 5 kids means he will be easy to negotiate with, sounds like he has at least some decency in him.

The police say the hostage taker is unstable. Part of me asks how they know this (probably medical records), another part of me says, "Go figure...he's holding little kids hostage with swords, yes he may be slightly unstable.

Hopefully this will have a safe ending.

CX.

www.huffingtonpost.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Link to Sky's report on this, not much info as yet but they will add more later...

Children Held Hostage At French Nursery

CX.

It's on the BBC too, they say it's a 17 year old.

15 have been released and 5 children still taken hostage.
www.bbc.co.uk...

I hope he isn't an immigrant.

If so this could turn into a mess, fueling more xenophobia.

Originally posted by pazcat
It's on the BBC too, they say it's a 17 year old.

15 have been released and 5 children still taken hostage.
www.bbc.co.uk...

Thanks for the update on that, got it the wrong way round in my thread.

Cheers.

CX.

reply to post by MikeboydUS


Last time something similar happened it wasn't an immigrant. As if a crazy immigrant is any different from a crazy national...the logic escapes me but fuels a lot of hatefires for the masses.

Any word as to whether or not it is a muslim hostage taker?

A 17 year old with swords?

The male teachers at that school better be old, aching with arthritis and using a walking stick otherwise i'm gonna call them bloody cowards. All you gotta do against a guy with swords is throw chairs at him en masse and beat the # out of him.

You sure he doesn't have ranged weapons?

reply to post by sonofliberty1776


The school is in Planoise, a neighborhood of housing projects with a big immigrant population on the western edge of Besancon. I can't find anything but his age, I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't another misguided muslim though.

reply to post by Somehumanbeing
That is what happens in a nanny state. People no longer have the ability to take care of things themselves. They depend upon the state to handle all problems. Individualism is anathema to a socialist nanny state. Only an individualist or a duly deputized member of the state police/military forces would be able to handle something like this.

I think the most terrifying thing about children being taken hostage isn't that they'll be scared, but that they won't be, and will be in danger because of not being scared. Why should they think that the big boy with the shiny stick is going to hurt them (NB - not saying small children are stupid, that's just the way I thought when I was a small child) and so when they've been told to stay still and sit down and not talk or whatever, eventually they want to eat, or go to the loo, and up they get and start heading towards what they want, and... well. it doesn't bear thinking about.

I can never understand the reasoning in taking a small child hostage. As much as I'm the first to admit that small children are amoral terrors with no care for who or what they hurt, they're generally too small to do any real damage (to humans) and even if they do they rarely intend it, so what is his problem with children?

(not supporting hostage taking with non-children, but taking adults hostage does seem less of an act of cowardice and more of an act of misdirected revenge)

EDIT: the thing with throwing chairs is, women can do it just as well with pre-school chairs as men can, and it only really works if the hostage taker isn't using keeping a small child close at hand as a deterrent to such activities.

discusting

Indiana Jones may have a solution.

Those kids are in my thoughts, what a coward for taking children hostage.

In the USA most cities after columbine have adopted to engaged an active shooter or who ever has taken a school by whatever means. What this means in laymens terms is the first police unit to reach the area, will not wait for special units, Swat or negotiators, but will go head to head when they reach the scene.

No, negotiations period.