Police Upset By Media's Calls To Store Where Hostages Held

(From The Seattle Times -- By Sharon Pian Chan)

In the tense hours after a young man opened fire in Tacoma Mall on Sunday and took hostages in a SAM GOODY store, the store phone rang several times.

It wasn't hostage negotiators. It was the media.

Monday, police officials said they were upset that journalists from THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, FOX NEWS and KOMO-TV called the store and interfered with a hostage situation.

"Depending on what they said, they could have said things that could have set him off further. We don't know what his triggers were," Tacoma police spokesman MARK FULGHUM said. "Negotiators are specially trained to deal with subjects and bring it to an end. These folks, they're interested in the story and could possibly make the guy even angrier and start the shooting up all over again."

KENNY IRBY, an instructor at THE POYNTER INSTITUTE, a journalism school in Florida, called it a "dangerous precedent."

Police Upset By Media's Calls To Store Where Hostages Held