The Nation: America’s Menacing Misfits

The most common seizure of hostages in the U.S. has long been the type dramatized in the award-winning film Dog Day Afternoon: criminals who have been surprised by police use innocent bystanders as tools in escape negotiations. But in the past 18 months, there has been an alarming increase in the number of cases of hostages being taken to express a complaint about society, to publicize an offbeat cause or merely to attract attention to a personal problem. Among such incidents:

> Oct. 6, 1975. An apolitical drifter, Ray (“Cat”) Olsen, 23, held ten hostages in a Manhattan branch of New York’s Bankers Trust Co. for eight hours, demanded that authorities release Patty Hearst and imprisoned members of the Symbionese Liberation Army and pay him $10 million in gold. Result: Olsen gave up and freed all hostages.

> Jan. 7, 1976. Miklos Petrovics, 40, seized two employees of a Culver City, Calif, branch of Bank America, demanded that the bank’s air be filtered through bird seed, that the manager “cleanse himself in the ocean” and that “everyone join hands, walk to the ocean and meditate.” Result: an FBI agent talked him into surrendering.

> May 22, 1976. Two former alcoholics, John Thomas, 28, and Jack Salazar, 27, seized twelve people in a New York City hospital to protest the closing of an alcohol detoxification program. Result: they surrendered peacefully.

> Aug. 26, 1976. Ashby Leach, 30, a Viet Nam veteran, held nine hostages for nine hours in the Cleveland offices of the Chessie System Inc., where he worked, and demanded he be given a leave of absence to take courses under the G.I. Bill. Result: the company agreed and he gave up.

> Dec. 7, 1976. Dolphin Lair, 21, a janitor whose father died of lung cancer, held a man hostage atop a Los Angeles skyscraper for 2½ hours to warn against the dangers of tobacco. Result: he gave up without a struggle.

> Feb. 8, 1977. Anthony Kiritsis, 44, a former car salesman, held a loan-company official with a shotgun harnessed to the victim’s neck for 63 hours, demanded cancellation of a mortgage. Result: he gave up after immunity was promised; immunity was not granted.

> Feb. 11, 1977. After watching Roots, Jesse Coulter, 42, held eight people in a home for unwed mothers in Cincinnati, demanded help in finding a son he had given up for adoption 20 years earlier. Result: a police officer pretending to be his son talked him into freeing the hostages.

> Feb. 14, 1977. Fred Cowan, 33, an American Nazi cultist, killed five men in a New Rochelle, N.Y., moving company after he was suspended from his job (TIME, Feb. 28). Result: Cowan committed suicide.

> March 7, 1977. Cory Moore, 25, disarmed Police Captain Leo M. Keglovic of Warrensville Heights, Ohio, demanded that President Carter apologize for black oppression in the U.S. and that “all white people leave the planet within seven days.” Result: Moore released his hostage unharmed and was arrested.