|
|
| Home | |
| Students | |
| 2008 Presidential election | |
| Arts | |
| Education | |
| Entertainment | |
| Environment | |
| Fashion | |
| Health | |
| Medicine | |
| Sports | |
| Terrorism | |
| Travel | |
| War in Iraq | |
| Click here for Archives |
HOSTAGES HELD IN CLINTON CAMPAIGN OFFICE RESCUED
By Joe Gentile
POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y., Dec. 6 - They were road flares duct-taped to his chest, but Leland Eisenberg alleged he had a “bomb” and held five people hostage at Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign field office in Rochester, New Hampshire on Friday, Nov. 30. However, after several hours of negotiations with a state trooper, Eisenberg released each of his hostages before surrendering to police.
Eisenberg specifically requested a dialogue with Clinton, but Rochester Police Chief David Dubois denied the request.
“As a tactical standpoint, that wouldn’t have been very wise for us to do that,” because it reduces the negotiator’s bargaining leverage, Dubois said to CNN.
“It appears that he is someone who was in need of help and sought attention in absolutely the wrong way,” Clinton said to the New York Times.
She also told Times reporters that Eisenberg had had no prior contact with the Clinton campaign before Friday’s events.
“These incidents unfortunately occur from time to time,” the senator said. “And you work with law enforcement, you trust the professionals to deal with whatever the threat might be. And I have full confidence in them. I don’t think it’s going to impact in any way on me.”
Senator Clinton, although a safe several hundred miles away in Washington D.C., flew into New Hampshire afterwards to meet with the five released hostages and their families before traveling to Iowa. Originally, she had been rehearsing a speech for a Democratic National Committee event in suburban Virginia. But instead, Clinton found herself instructing staffers to suspend all immediate campaign activities until the crisis had resolved. Former President Bill Clinton also cancelled his appearance at a fundraiser he had planned on attending in New York City that night.
The incident in a small office on North Main Street put the entire city on high-alert for more than six hours. Police evacuated all of the buildings along North Main Street. The nearby campaign offices of Sen. Barack Obama and John Edwards also had to be evacuated. Clinton’s office in Rochester, a former mill city of 30,000 about 70 miles north of Boston, is but just one of the several she has scattered throughout the state.
Eisenberg, a 46-year old man from nearby Somersworth, complained to the arresting officers about his inability to get mental health treatment.
In September of 2002, he had filed a lawsuit against the Boston Archdiocese, alleging that he had been raped by a parish priest, and named then-Archbishop Cardinal Bernard Law as a defendant. The outrage after internal documents surfaced revealing that Law had transferred priests around parishes, without disclosing the sexual-abuse allegations against them, forced him to resign that year.
His lawsuit states that, in his early 20s, Eisenberg had been homeless and living in an abandoned car of an Ayer, Massachusetts junkyard. During that time, he sought help from the Roman Catholic Parish of St. Alexandria in Westford, looking for housing and support. Instead, Eisenberg alleged that a priest exposed him to pornography, and then molested him after he had been hired by the parish as a painter. He had been offered lodging at the parish until he could fully support himself.
One night, according to his lawsuit, after becoming intoxicated at a nightclub, the priest came to get Eisenberg a ride home. Eisenberg had passed out, but found himself being raped in the driveway of the parish once he awoke. The next week, Eisenberg attempted suicide by jumping off a bridge in Ayer, and had been transported to a psychiatric facility for observation and treatment.
Reporters at CNN received information from a legal source involved with Eisenberg’s claim that he had been addicted to both alcohol and drugs.
Presently, he faces state charges of four counts of kidnapping, one count of criminal threatening and one count of false use of an explosive device, according to Rochester police Capt. Paul Callaghan. Governmental authorities also stated Eisenberg might face stiff federal charges.
“I haven’t spoken to my family about it, but I can say that when I heard it, I was surprised,” said junior Nicki Boisvert of Merrimack, New Hampshire – about an hour from the Rochester area. “You don’t usually think of New Hampshire doing things like that.”
Despite being stereotyped as a “relatively small, unimportant state,” according to Boisvert, New Hampshire recently reasserted its right to be the first state to hold a presidential primary in the first week of January last month.
Boisvert’s family has traditionally participated in the New Hampshire primary, and she herself remembers going to see Bill Bradley eight years ago, and both John Edwards and Wesley Clark only four years ago.
“It’s always exciting to go and interact with candidates like that,” Boisvert said.
“I hope it doesn’t inflict any fear in any of the candidates,” Boisvert added. “My guess is it will have a minimal effect, but only time will tell for certain.”