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Bank Hostage Situation Continues in Indiana
Aired September 04, 2001 - 12:27 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: All right, back now to our live coverage of this bank hostage situation that's been playing out this morning in Lowell, Indiana. This is happening at the Centier Bank, just across the street from Lowell High School. This is about 40 miles east of Chicago, and this has been going on since about 9:00 local time, 10:00 this morning, eastern time.
A customer came to the bank and saw inside a robbery in progress, and then she called 911, and then that's when everything was locked down at the schools, the businesses next to the banks were all evacuated, and the hostage situation then ensued.
We've been watching this morning, and we have actually seen with our own eyes, we've seen four people released from this bank -- the hostages we mean. At least one of them, according to AP reports, is a child.
You're looking now at some tape that we got of the last person we saw released from the bank. We've also heard local helicopter reporters saying that there was also a report there of two or three more people being released from the rear of the bank. There's been no pictures of that, we have not seen that ourselves, so we do not know for sure exactly how many people have been released. We can say that we have seen on our air right here four.
We do not know how many people are still inside, because there were questions about that at the very outset. We've heard reports of as many as 20, to as low a number as nine people inside the bank. So, we do know that they're around somewhere between 10 and 20 people inside the bank, but that is not the case right now.
We know that the police there are in communications with the gunman inside the bank who is holding a shotgun on the people there inside. We also know that we saw a package dropped off when the third person was released from the bank, that person was actually released in exchange for a package that was dropped off there at that doorstep of the bank. We have no idea exactly what that was all about. We're trying to listen in.
In fact, let's listen in now to our affiliate WBBM, and see if we can catch up on some more information.
LINDA MACLENNAN, WBBM-ANCHOR: Absolutely. MICHAEL AYALA, WBBM-ANCHOR: You've been a hero thus far, Denise. I think it's fair to say that the situation is under control as best as it can be, possibly because of your actions. You should feel good about that.
DENISE: You know, when you have a family member in there you want to do what you can, so.
MACLENNAN: You weren't able to see your -- did you say cousin? You weren't able to see this person through the window?
DENISE: No, just the person walking back and forth.
MACLENNAN: Now, Denise, as we've been reporting, it's been confirmed that three people have been released. Do you know whether or not for sure your relative is not one of those people.
DENISE: Nope, not one of them.
MACLENNAN: Oh, it's not one of them.
DOROTHY TUCKER, WBBM REPORTER: Linda?
MACLENNAN: Yes.
TUCKER: Hi, this is Dorothy again. I'm going to interrupt for a second because I've got another gentleman here by the name of Kent. Thank you very much, Denise.
MACLENNAN: Yes, thank you.
TUCKER: As you can imagine, people are kind of walking back and forth here, but I've got another person by the name of Kent. Kent's sister is inside, and she just made assistant manager. And like a lot of the family members who are kind of milling around out here, very nervous, very upset. Let me let you talk to Kent for a moment, OK?
MACLENNAN: OK.
KENT: Hello, Linda.
MACLENNAN: Hello. Please tell us how you heard about this, and is it a relative of yours who is the new assistant bank manager there? I was having trouble hearing Dorothy.
KENT: She just became assistant manager here, oh, a month or six weeks ago. We heard about it from a phone call, and me and my brother run a couple used car businesses about 12 miles south of here, and we just told the rest of the family to get the kids together. And we took a ride up here, and we're just waiting for her to just hopefully get out of there real soon.
AYALA: What information, Kent, have you gotten from police at this time as you arrived on the scene? Have they given you any information about the status of your sister inside? KENT: They said that -- they told us that the fellow's real calm. I guess there been three hostage released. The fellow couldn't even tell us who they are, they're keeping us way back. They said things are looking real good, but of course he's still in there and he's got a gun, and my sister is still in there. That doesn't make me happy.
AYALA: Kent, did they give you any information at all as to who the gunman might be? If he's from the local area, is he an outsider? Anything like that?
KENT: I was just told by another family member that was out here, somebody else's family member, that they thought it was a young fellow from a neighboring town. But like I say, I was getting that secondhand, so I don't know if that is true or if that isn't true.
AYALA: So, you must be having a very, very difficult morning thus far. Some of the emotions you must be feeling, can you relay some of those to us right now? The anxiety that you might be feeling?
KENT: Yes, me and my brother are both up here, and we just want our sister out of there. We just want it to end. It's hard to explain what I'm feeling, to be honest with you.
MACLENNAN: Ken, how far back are you being kept by police? We're looking right now at a picture, you can't see it obviously, but we're looking at a picture of -- the Pizza Hut is right in the middle of our frame, and Commercial Avenue is down toward the left. How far back from where we're looking are you being kept?
KENT: Probably about an 8th of an mile. But you know they're taking family members right now, I really need to go.
MACLENNAN: OK, sir. Yes, thank you.
KENT: Thank you.
MACLENNAN: All right. So we were just talking to Kent, I didn't get his last time, but his sister just recently in the last few weeks was named assistant bank manager there. He said they're taking family members.
AYALA: Right.
MACLENNAN: Don't know where they are taking them. They have, I think, a staging area sort of in the Pizza Hut there.
AYALA: The Pizza Hut has become a command center.
TUCKER: Linda?
MACLENNAN: Yes, Dorothy.
TUCKER: I'm sorry. I'm trying to gather as much information while people talk with you, so bear with me a little bit.
MACLENNAN: Sure.
TUCKER: Jumping back on again because we are seeing the FBI escort family members looks like to the bank, a line of -- I had to guess what's out here. I see a good 10 or 12 men and women who are being escorted towards the bank anyway. I'm told they may well be going over to some kind of holding area, but they are taking them a little closer, presumably to the...
MACLENNAN: To the front of the bank, Dorothy?
TUCKER: Not to the front of the bank. They're not -- they're walking in that direction, but they seem to be going to a holding area somewhere where they can probably talk to them all, and give them a better idea of what is going on inside.
MACLENNAN: I see. OK. So, that's why Kent, who we were just speaking to, said he had to go, they were gathering family members. And he said the family members were being kept about an 8th of a mile back from the scene.
TUCKER: Yes, they were right where we were. Then, as I said, they just walked them over a little bit closer, probably to get them in a little bit closer contact perhaps with some other FBI agent, or some kind of way that they can get more information.
MACLENNAN: Dorothy, three hostage have been released, a child and two adults, but from what we understand they haven't told the family members who has been released.
TUCKER: No, that's what Kent said. He's not sure. He's not sure whether his sister was among them or not, and that could very well could be what they are taking them over there to introduce them, probably out of the sight of our cameras. That's exactly what they did, they walked them around the other side of the building, and now we can no longer see them.
I would imagine there may very well be a couple of reunions going on, on the other side of that building out of our eyesight.
AYALA: Also we know, Dorothy, that under these situations information becomes a very important commodity, and as you said, they're probably just going to interview every single individual there to find out as much as they can about the individuals inside the bank, which can, again, help them in their negotiations with this individual who is holding them hostage.
TUCKER: Yes, just briefly talking to these -- to the family members here, I mean it's really hard for them to describe what they are going through. I mean, they are scared, they really don't want to think about the worst because they keep praying for the best here.
The people that I saw were just really kind of standing around, not even really talking to each other, just looking around. I'm sure dealing with their own thoughts, their loved ones who are in there, hoping that everything turns out all right, and that the FBI can eventually talk this guy out of there. MACLENNAN: It's been going on now for maybe coming to almost three hours now the situation has been going on, right in downtown Lowell, right on the main street there. You are looking at a picture, at the center of which the -- that red roof is a restaurant, and then just below that is the Centier Bank, which is connected to a strip mall right in the center of this small town of about 7,000 people.
At this point, we are trying to do the math and figure out how many hostages may still be inside the bank, and it may be what? Eight I would think now.
AYALA: Yes, we're getting conflicting reports.
MACLENNAN: Three have been safely evacuated. The hostage taker has let three go, one child and two adults. And as our Dorothy Tucker said, about 10 or 12 family members, family members of those who are being held hostage insides there, have been walked by the FBI around to the other side of the bank, presumably to be briefed by the FBI, and we don't know what else. It's being done outside of the vantage point of the reporters.
TUCKER: Linda, I didn't know if you can her this above me...
MACLENNAN: Yes.
TUCKER: ... but there are two choppers flying very close here now. It looked like it's got either the Lowell, Lake County Police, and I see the Indiana State Police Chopper. Whichever chopper this is, either Lowell or Lake County, they are landing literally at the back, or near the back of the bank.
I'm going to keep my eye and find out exactly if I can see what is going on, who stepped out of here. But, a chopper just landed.
MACLENNAN: OK. I think I can see -- is that it in the middle?
TUCKER: Can you see that? Yes.
MACLENNAN: I think I can see a chopper right there in the middle of that parking lot, sort of.
TUCKER: Exactly.
MACLENNAN: And that either Lake County or Indiana State Police chopper, correct? I can see the...
TUCKER: It looks like it's more like Lake County, because I see the Indiana State chopper flying.
MACLENNAN: Yes. The propeller is slowing, the chopper has landed in the middle of that parking lot.
AYALA: Dorothy, has there been any other increased police activity in the area, other than what you are reporting right now about the helicopter? TUCKER: I have not personally seen any. We, again, are about 100 yards back on the other side. I saw police cars, but I have not seen any new police or authorities come in here, outside of the chopper that is landing.
You probably have a better viewpoint. I see two, three people getting off of this chopper.
AYALA: We couldn't see that.
MACLENNAN: Now we can see somebody coming out.
TUCKER: I can see a couple of people coming out. I see, it looks like somebody from the SWAT team running in front of the chopper, from the far distance running towards the building.
AYALA: We've got that that is indeed a state police helicopter.
TUCKER: That is state police, OK.
AYALA: Don't know who they are talking to, but again, he did meet with someone there in the parking lot.
MACLENNAN: There, we just saw for a second there, there at the very edge of your screen is somebody that looked like possibly a member of the SWAT team that's just disappeared into the shadow there, now on the very right-hand side of your screen.
Dorothy, two people got out of the chopper, did you say?
TUCKER: I saw two get out of the chopper. They did not walk towards the bank, they walked away from the bank, though. But, you know what, it is really kind of frustrating, because it is conceivable that they may have walked to the back of the building, and they just looked like from my vantage point that they were walking out of the chopper. But they did -- they were ducking. They were ducking as if they were walking away from the chopper here.
AYALA: Dorothy, he seemed to be talking to someone from one of those dark cars. From your vantage point, can you see other dark cars, and who do they belong to?
TUCKER: Those dark cars look like they belong to the Indiana State Police.
AYALA: OK. So it looks like state police were talking to other state police individuals. They looked like they finished their conversation just a few moments ago, and have both returned to their vehicles.
TUCKER: That's what it looks like here. I see a few more, half a dozen or so, milling about, walking towards their cars now. And I can't really tell what is happening in and around that chopper.
MACLENNAN: If we could lose that super at the bottom there that says Chopper 2, we could maybe see -- there, thanks. Even just for a few minutes, because that's where we were able to see some people walking around down there. And as we've said, over the last 2 1/2 hours, once the authorities got in place, there was not much activity, because that whole area, basically, was cordoned off, police tape in the area, the school across the street on lockdown. So there has been very little movement there, but it has...
TUCKER: I tell you, Linda, it looks like a ghost town out here around this mall.
MACLENNAN: I bet.
TUCKER: Just looking across the street, there's a Speedway gas station, and there are no cars pumping gas. I see one person walking out now, but directly across the street is some kind of restaurant. You don't see people walking around. This whole strip mall here, where grocery stores, Pizza Hut, a card store -- and just very, very still -- and understandably: We've got to remember that he can see out, perhaps, but people around here can't see in.
MACLENNAN: There may be a television set in there.
AYALA: Sure, there may be a television set. We do know, Dorothy, from most of the people we've talked to and some of the reports we are getting all those stores have been put on what they are calling lockdown, so people are not being allowed or are being asked to stay within those stores, so perhaps that's why we are not seeing a whole lot of activity.
MACLENNAN: All of this going down in Lowell, Indiana, a town of about 7,000 people. Right there, carved out of the middle of farm fields and corn fields.
TUCKER: About 1 1/2's drive from Chicago. We just drove down, and it took much longer than I thought, but you've got to remember this is south of Merrillville, south of Crown Point, south of Cedar Lake.
MACLENNAN: This is a small rural community, and we've talked to number of people who live there who say that even though this is a small town, and things like this don't happen very often, they have to be prepared, and we have seen this morning how well they are prepared, for whatever might come their way -- whether it was the blizzard back in '98 that shut the town down for three days or this situation, a hostage situation inside a bank on the main street through town -- Commercial Avenue -- that's what you see right down there at the bottom of your screen -- which has been going on for almost three hours now.
So they have been prepared. This plan went into action. The high school across the street was on lockdown immediately. The other local schools, which are further away from the scene -- we have not seen those, because they are further away -- thank goodness -- went into special lockdown. So this community has responded probably in a textbook fashion, you might say.
AYALA: A really coordinated effort between state police, the local police department and FBI, responding to this scene.
MACLENNAN: Lake County police.
AYALA: Lake County police, exactly. All responding to the scene, getting the situation under control, taking over a Pizza Hut, from what we understand, and creating a command center there, and from there, basically, controlling the situation: contacting local businesses, contacting the school, making sure everyone remained in place.
MACLENNAN: Some of the information we gleaned from the family members -- Ken, whose sister is the recently named assistant manager of the bank -- spoke to us briefly before he and the other family members were led off by FBI. He said that he had been told by the authorities that the hostage taker was calm -- not agitated, but fairly calm. As we've said, three of the hostages were allowed to be released -- two adults and a child.
Dorothy, do you need to cut in here?
TUCKER: I'm just seeing a couple of people who may be relatives hopping in the car. I want to instruct our cameraman to take pictures of the people who are being driven away. The others were walked over there, but for whatever reason, there is a man and woman who were put into a state police car. They are being driven in that location. Maybe they're just being driven because there's just two of them, and not a dozen, but we want to...
MACLENNAN: I wonder if those possibly could be the two people who were released, and are being taken away to get whatever information they might have about this person who is being...
(CROSSTALK)
TUCKER: I don't any they were the ones who were released, because they were closer to the grocery store -- out of our reach, but they did not seem to come from the direction of the bank. But I'm just guessing at this point. It was kind of different that they were put in the car, as opposed to being escorted on foot.
MACLENNAN: Right.
TUCKER: But it looks like they went to the same area, the area where the other relatives are standing by, on the other side of the grocery store here.
MACLENNAN: Sometimes in these situations we grasp at straws and try to extrapolate and read the situation, and try to get some information based what you are seeing, and the clues may be few, as they have been throughout this morning.
AYALA: We got some pretty decent firsthand information from Denise Gottchalk (ph), who was right on the scene early this morning. She was the person who was actually at the teller, on the side, and she ended up calling, and somebody told her not to go into the bank. She ended up calling 911, and really became a hero. She has a cousin inside the bank. She remained on the phone with the police for about half an hour, giving as much information as she could as to the individual who was holding hostages. She could see him.
She was the eyes and the ears of the police because...
MCEDWARDS: Colleen McEdwards, at CNN Center, here. We're interrupting our affiliate coverage here just to bring you up to date. Ten to 20 people have been taken hostage inside a bank in Lowell, Indiana, about 40 to 45 miles southeast of Chicago. Several people have been released at this point. Police say there is one gunman inside the bank, with sawed-off shotgun -- apparently a robbery that went wrong; he is described as white male in his 20s.
We're joined now by Byron Sage. He's a former FBI negotiator. We want to bring him in now, to give you a sense what kind of negotiations go on in this situation.
Mr. Sage, thanks for being here.
Mr. Sage was the head of negotiations at Waco, I should mention, as well.
What's your sense, Mr. Sage, of what stage they are at? We saw two people come out the front, a third person come out the front, and then we are told that several people have come out the back.
BYRON SAGE, FORMER FBI HOSTAGE NEGOTIATOR: I think what you are observing now is an effort by the local law enforcement and probably multiple agencies to try to establish a dialogue with the individual inside, the hostage taker, to try get him off of what is probably a very emotional high to a more rational level, where they can start a meaningful dialogue...
MCEDWARDS: Can I stop you right there? Tell us how police, how FBI and the people who are experts at this get the person to that rational stage where they can talk to them?
SAGE: Most of it is a matter of trying to remain calm, everybody remaining calm. The law enforcement negotiators that are brought in are trying to calm the subject down, and trying to keep the hostages calm, as well.
The thing to remember in a bank robbery like this, where a response from law enforcement has ended up in a hostage-type situation, this is probably the furthest thing from this individual's mind when he went in to rob this bank. Bank robbery is basically an act of absolute desperation. I would assume the individual had no intent to go in and find himself in middle of a protracted hostage- type situation.
MCEDWARDS: How is it that suspects get themselves into a situation where demands are asked for?
SAGE: Again, I think it is an act of desperation, but when all of a sudden he found himself trapped inside of what was to be his victim business, the bank, he begins to scramble, for how can he secure the most important thing in his life right now, and that's escape. The way he does that is to take hostages and to try to use them as leverage to convince law enforcement that they need to allow him to flee from the area where he never intended to be captured in the first place.
MCEDWARDS: Mr. Sage, who does the negotiations, in general? Does it tend to be FBI?
SAGE: The FBI would be involved here because it is a federally insured bank, but that doesn't necessarily mean the FBI would take over the negotiations. What would normally happen is the first responders are probably going to be a negotiator, or maybe even a patrol officer from the local authorities. The Bureau, when they become involved, would normally come in and saddle up with that negotiator, particularly if he or she already established a rapport with the hostage taker. Then they would try to team and keep one another on track and try to work jointly as negotiators, and also work with the hostage taker, to try to get this matter resolved in a safe fashion, with no one being injured.
MCEDWARDS: I should mention we do know that the FBI were called in. There are also SWAT teams there. There are law enforcements from several different districts there.
Mr. Sage, again about the negotiation process -- tell us how important it is for negotiators to try to talk to some of the hostages. Do they tend to try to do that, or is it really about the suspect?
SAGE: I think, particularly in the early stages, you want to focus more on the hostage taker. You want to try to talk to him or her and convince them that we realize that this was not his initial intent, that there's not been -- that nothing has happened so seriously that we can't jointly work through this.
And if you picture a teeter-totter right now, the teeter-totter is extremely high, let's say, on the left-hand side, which would be emotionality; which means at the other end of that teeter-totter is rational thought. It's -- what you need to try to do is get this person down to a normal functioning level where he can actually make rational decisions; that's not going to happen as long as a person is so emotional that he can't think straight.
MCEDWARDS: Well, you know, is the fact that clearly some people have been -- several people have been released, is that a sign of some rational thought?
SAGE: That's an extremely good sign, yes. It's a good sign that the hostage taker is thinking on behalf of his own long-term welfare as well as hopefully taking into consideration the fact that those hostage that he has in there, every single one is an individual that has problems and difficulties and so forth just like the hostage taker. So we hope that that kind of rapport is built.
MCEDWARDS: Are promises ever made? I mean, how does law enforcement sort of walk that thin line? SAGE: There are times, obviously, when you try to enter into a bargaining type of exchange with the individual, but the key there is try to negotiate in an honest and candid and straightforward manner.
You need to come from a position of honesty, but the hostage negotiator needs to demand nothing less from the hostage taker. As soon as they have that kind of a relationship then they can start moving forward to try to resolve the situation peacefully, through trust.
MCEDWARDS: All right, Mr. Sage, former FBI negotiator, thank you so much for your thoughts this morning. We appreciate it -- this afternoon, I should say.
We will take a short break here on CNN. We will keep monitoring this situation, though, for you, so stay with us. We'll be right back in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: All right, you're looking at a live picture, once again, coming from Lowell, Indiana. The Centier Bank now is the scene of a siege there by a bank robber who went in this morning and the robbery just did not go as planned.
We're seeing now the scene as -- you're looking now at a picture of the staging area that the authorities have used, it's actually next door. The bank is to your right, if you're looking at the picture, it's to the right of that Pizza Hut there.
We have seen this morning a number of hostages released from inside. We do know exactly how many there were or how many there are inside. At the beginning of the whole ordeal we understood -- or heard reports rather that there were between 10 and 20.
We're going to show you now some videotape that we have from earlier of the release of two of the hostage, I believe. This happened sometime around, I guess -- it's hard to say now, but it was around 20 of 12:00 Eastern Time, 15 of 12:00 Eastern Time, so we're talking about an hour and 10 -- hour and 15 minutes ago.
After this we also saw another person released and bag left and dropped off at the doorstep of this bank. And we have since seen other people coming in and out of there, so it's hard to tell right now how many have been released, so we're just going to say we have heard confirmed by the police at least three. We have seen with our eyes perhaps as many as four. There may be even more. We also heard reports of others being released out of the back of the bank.
Let's go now to our affiliate WBBM, who has been joining us this morning in coverage.
TUCKER: ... talking like he is going to come out, talking like he's going do come out. That may explain why now I think I see both choppers on the ground. Here a second chopper has landed, other one back up in the air, and still see people walking around. But that's kind of what we're hearing as well. And I thought, too, if it is OK, I have another person here who's got a relative inside.
MACLENNAN: Sure.
TUCKER: OK.
Rex (ph)! Rex! Can I see you for a second?
We're going to talk to Linda. And you were -- and give her an idea of what are they telling the relatives. They took your nephew over there, what are they telling him?
Linda, this is Rex.
MACLENNAN: Hello, Rex.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello.
MACLENNAN: You have a relative who's being held hostage or works in the bank?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's my nephew's wife. Her name's Tara Claus (ph).
MACLENNAN: Does she work in the bank? Or is she....
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, she does.
MACLENNAN: OK, she works in the bank.
What are you told? What's your nephew being told about...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, they -- my nephew just arrived 10 minutes ago and I was going to go in, but he arrived, so I let him go in. And they told us that they'd keep us informed. That they were going to have a conference with them, took him somewhere and had a conference.
MACLENNAN: I see, so that's where he's gone now?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
MACLENNAN: To be updated by the authorities as to what's going on.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, yes. He seemed upset, too. I mean,...
MACLENNAN: No doubt.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... because that's his wife. And he told me flat out, she's not working here no more.
MACLENNAN: And what about you? Your left back there. At least he is getting some information. It must be hard on you, too?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, it is. I'm is concerned, you know, very concerned. My mother's very concerned. MACLENNAN: Sure.
And how close are you being allowed to where this is all happening?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, we're about I'd say about a 100, about 200 feet, I don't know, from the bank.
MACLENNAN: All right.
So you're...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Maybe more than that, 300.
MACLENNAN: It's your nephew who has just left to the...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, he went in closer, so they took him in.
MACLENNAN: Right. Along with other family members.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
MACLENNAN: We've seen -- Dorothy had seen a group of family members being escorted by the FBI.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And there was a guy -- a guy by the FBI come up to us and he told us he'd keep us informed on what's going on.
AYALA: Now, Rick (ph), how were you informed of this and what was your reaction when you found out that this was going on?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We heard on a scanner at home, and so I rushed straight down here.
MACLENNAN: And where's home? Do you live in Lowell?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, Apple Valley trailer park.
MACLENNAN: And you were listening to a scanner when you heard this going on?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
MACLENNAN: And who called your nephew?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know. He didn't say. He was too upset. He just...
MACLENNAN: He just wanted to be as close as he could?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He just wanted to be close to his wife.
MACLENNAN: Understandable.
All right. Well, thank you for joining us and sharing what little they shared with you. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.
MACLENNAN: We appreciate it and good luck.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, thank you.
MACLENNAN: And Dorothy just told us a few minutes ago she was listening to a police scanner that two more hostage have been released. So that should bring it to five who have been released, three earlier, including one child, and then two very recently. And she said that it -- the police were talking a way that made it sound like there might be a peaceful resolution.
TUCKER: They indicated -- they actually used the words, looks like he's going to talk to us. Looks likes he's going to talk to us, looks like he's going to come out. Those are the words that I heard on the police scanner here. Let me jump in and interrupt.
I also see now a crowd of FBI, some other authorities, standing around talking. The first time, there's four or five of them, which again may be an indication that they are trying to figure out what they can do to get this man out of there.
MACLENNAN: And you can't see where the people are being released, from which door they are being released, where they're going, who's with them; is that right?
TUCKER: No, no we can't. There is a Pizza Hut that stands in the way of that happening. The bank is right on the other side of there, and our vantage point is really, really weak from here. We just see...
MACLENNAN: We can see cars just coming into our picture here, up near the helicopter that's still on the ground. A black car that -- right, Indiana State Police possibly pulling up. And then we can still see little gaggles of people, a few here and there, and then a few individuals walking around. But, if they're walking, they are walking very slowly.
TUCKER: Yes, that's the same thing we're seeing. Nobody really running or anything around here, folks just kind of taking their time, and going from one group to the next, back and forth. So I guess there is not a real high anxiety level here in that regard. So, maybe that's a hopeful time that they really think that this person is going to come on out.
AYALA: Especially, I think Dorothy...
COLLEEN MCEDWARDS, CNN ANCHOR: Colleen McEdwards here at CNN Center, you have been watching our coverage courtesy of affiliate WBBM.
People are being released from that bank robbery gone wrong and hostage situation in Lowell, Indiana. We know that several people are out at this point. The gunman we believe is still inside. He is described as a white male in his 20s. We're of course following the the story here on CNN, and we're going to keep track of it for you.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: All of this playing out 300 yard away from a high school, right across the street, which is now under lockdown.
MCEDWARDS: Kids are safe, though.
HARRIS: That's right. More coverage just ahead as Lou Waters and Natalie Allen check in.
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