Police: Man shoots mother dead and takes three year old hostage on city bus in Texas

Posted by Patty Garza on March 20th, 2013

This is a syndicated post from Politics to Parenting and Everything in Between. [Read the original article...]

Armed officers surround a house Wednesday, March 20, 2013 in Fort Wayne, Ind., where police say a man suspected of killing a bus passenger earlier in the day is holding a 3-year-old child hostage. Police say the suspect is holed up the house near the street where a woman was pulled off a bus and fatally shot earlier in the day. (AP Photo/The Journal Gazette, Swikar Patel)

Swikar Patel | The Journal Gazette

Scary situation….Thank God the three year old was rescued and unharmed. So sad for the mother. Not sure if the gunman was the father or what the situation is but there is no excuse for this kind of behavior and use of a child as a shield from police.

According to CBS and The Journal Gazette, A fatal shooting that led to an hours-long hostage situation in Fort Wayne, Ind. ended with the suspect’s death and the child hostage’s safe recovery on Wednesday, CBS affiliate WANE reports.

Courtesy Allen County Sheriff’s Department

Kenneth Knight

The suspect, who was identified by police as 45-year-old Kenneth Knight, allegedly shot a 49-year-old woman to death after pulling her off a city bus around 8 a.m. Wednesday.

The shooting victim, who was identified by The Journal Gazette as Jacqueline Bouvier Hardy, of Fort Wayne, was riding the Citilink bus with the suspect. Fort Wayne police spokeswoman Racquel Foster said it wasn’t clear whether they were companions, but police do not believe the shooting was random.

After the shooting, Knight fled on foot into the surrounding neighborhood where he holed up in a house with a 3-year-old during a standoff with police.

According to WANE, police said once they had a clear shot at the suspect, they took it. The suspect was killed at about 4:30p.m. and the toddler was then safely rescued.

It is not known what, if any, relationship Knight had with the three-year-old.

Yahoo! News: “FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) — A man pulled a woman off a city bus in northern Indiana on Wednesday and fatally shot her in front of multiple witnesses before fleeing into a neighborhood where he holed up in a house with a 3-year-old during a police standoff.
The man and woman had both been riding a Citilink bus, but Fort Wayne police spokeswoman Raquel Foster said it wasn’t clear whether they were companions. Nonetheless, police do not believe the shooting was random and “have a good idea who (they’re) looking for,” she told The Journal Gazette.
Foster later told WANE-TV that the man was barricaded in a home and holding a 3-year-old hostage. It was not clear if the child was related to the man.
The man pulled the woman, described as a young adult, off the bus about 8 a.m. and fatally shot her about 25 feet away before fleeing on foot into the surrounding neighborhood, police said. A backpack lay at the feet of the victim, whose body was covered by a sheet.”

The street was busy with morning traffic, including children waiting at school bus stops, when the shooting happened, and police said there were a number of witnesses. Fort Wayne Community Schools spokeswoman Krista Stockman told WANE-TV that two elementary schools were nearby, and some children saw the shooting on their way to school. She said the schools were taking extra precautions.

Citilink General Manager Kenneth Housden said police will be reviewing video and audio equipment from the bus for their investigation.