Six children and two women held hostage by armed men in a house in Illinois were freed Wednesday morning after a standoff that lasted a grueling 20 hours.
About 24 heavily-armed police officers broke down the door and barged into the home in the Chicago suburb of Harvey to free a 6-year-old girl, a 12-year-old girl and two adult females that were on the second floor, NBC Chicago reported.
Police found the two male suspects on the first floor of the home and took them into custody. The other children, four boys between ages 1 and 11, were already released Tuesday evening.
"There had been a lot of tension," Cook County Sherriff Tom Dart told NBC Chicago. "Things were changing at different times, it just was the proper time to act...We tried everything conceivable to get them to understand that we weren't going away and that this was going to be resolved."
The incident began when the armed suspects tried to burglarize the home near West 147th Street and Robey Avenue Tuesday afternoon. Responding officers arrived at the scene, guns went off and two cops were shot, Harvey town spokesman Sean Howard told the station. Both did not suffer life threatening injuries.
When more police arrived outside the home, the suspects went inside and took the women and children hostage. The victims do not appear to have known their captors.
Offices from over 20 law enforcement agencies, a SWAT team and hostage negotiators were dispatched to the scene, speaking to the men through an open window. About 100 residents in the area were evacuated from their homes, the Chicago Tribune reported.
It is not clear how the negotiators were able to get the captives released.
The first child, who was sick, was released at around 6:30 p.m., NBC Chicago reported. Another child was released at 7 p.m. and a 1-year-old was freed 45 minutes later. A 1-year-old was released at 10:30.
Dart told the Chicago Tribune the women "were crying hysterically" when they were freed.
"They haven't been harmed," Dart said of the victims. "But they're very traumatized."
