A woman upset about the firing of a friend has released three people she took hostage Nov. 2 at a Caterpillar factory in Clayton, N.C. Pam Arizona, 55, surrendered and is in jail.
She is charged with kidnapping and making false bomb threats.
No one was injured during the two-hour incident. The woman appeared to be holding a shotgun and said she had explosives when she walked into the plant’s lobby in mid-afternoon. Investigators have found no evidence of explosives. The hostages didn’t know Arizona and just happened to be in the lobby when she entered.
The hostage-taker, who is not a Caterpillar employee, is a friend of an employee terminated recently and was “demanding answers,” Johnston County Sheriff Steve Bizzell told the Associated Press.
About 500 people were working at the plant when Arizona came into the lobby. Most were removed on buses and taken to a local school during the standoff.
Negotiators brought in the friend who had lost her job to talk with the hostage-taker. Arizona surrender soon afterward.
