The nation was captivated earlier today by a hostage situation in Pittsburgh. However, in a bizarre twitter, the hostage taker was updating his Facebook page throughout the morning.
According to CBS, 22-year-old Klein Michael Thaxton took a hostage inside a downtown Pittsburgh office building earlier today. Thaxton was armed, and police spent several hours negotiating with him while he was inside the building with an employee from CW Breitsman Associates, a firm that deals employee benefits programs.
Huffington Post writes that while inside the building, Thaxton was posting emotional messages to his Facebook. "I cant take it no more im done bro. How this ends is up to yall bro real shyt," he wrote at about 9am this morning. At that point he had been inside the building for about an hour. Thaxton posted several messaged to his Facebook and friends responded with messages of support and pleading with him to think about what he was doing.
At around 1pm, Thaxton's Facebook page was shut down. It's not yet clear whether he deleted his own account or if it was Facebook that shut down his page. Either way, HuffPo cites wtov9 as saying the 22-year-old ex-military man surrendered peacefully just after 2pm today and no one was injured.
reminds me of that guy some years back that made the killdozer and went on a rampage in that small town... Thing was built over a years time or so with 1ft thick concrete armour around the cabin, many gun ports and video feeds, a well prepared machine
(he did not fire a single shot at anyone else in the end)
Digging deeper revealed a pretty understandable why!
Turns out he bought his dream home at auction in this quiet little town planning to set up a business and bring up his family.
At the auction end a loosing bidder came and asked him to sell him his repo'd property back to him, to which he offered it at the price he had just then paid himself. This offer was refused.
Turns out the original owner was well connected in the local community... many of the influential ones then made our future dozer guys life hell.
Levying unfair taxes on his new business and anything else they could dream up to bankrupt him / drive the poor guy out.
Though he played fair to them, their actions ruined his life to such a degree he ended up seeking the only other course he could see, striking back at the ones who hurt him.
At the end of it all, he took his armoured dozer and essentially drove it through all the businesses premises of all the townsfolk who had turned against him unfairly.
A sad end though, some debris caught a cooling pipe and once his engine seized, after some time he shot himself before authorities could cut into the dozer cabin - took a few hours.
We know This guys story as before he started his rampage, he sent a video to various peoples explaining why he was going to do what he did.
I reckon many such cases should never have turned so sour. A little more care, understanding and support all around to help us all make this place we live a happier one
Many troops come back with PTSD and other severe mental disabilities. Many of these stories involve are our men and women who come back to the country, abandoned by their government with nowhere to go. It's very sad they aren't screened and treated more effectively to prevent terrible situations like this. Don't judge until you know the entire story.