WMAQ Channel 5 - The People's Court - "Hostage Situation Special Report" (1986)
Here's a Special Report that interrupted an edition of The People's Court, then presided over by Judge Joseph Wapner, as aired on WMAQ Channel 5. The discussion turns to Dobermans when all of a sudden . . .
Channel 5 News Special Report bumper (voiceover by - is that Ed Grennan?)
Ron Magers, in the Channel 5 newsroom, reports that a hostage situation is developing on the Near North Side at West Lill and North Southport Avenues, with one police officer on the scene already shot. On the scene at West Lill and North Greenview Avenues is Channel 5's Rich Samuels, who specifies the situation as occurring at 1427 West Lill in a first-floor apartment, and the hostage-taker is identified as John Peck who is holding two elderly women hostage.
Rich notes that Peck's mother lives across the street from where the incident is taking place. As noted by Rich, Peck had begun shooting with a high-powered rifle within the past hour, and one plainclothes officer who tried to storm the building was shot in the head and taken to Illinois Masonic Hospital with no word on his condition.
As Peck's sister has told police, the shooter has incendiary devices within the building, maybe a bomb or something that would touch off a fire; and there is an unconfirmed report of one other person having been shot. As the tape cuts out, Rich notes that police sharpshooters have surrounded the building on all four sides.
This aired on local Chicago TV on Friday, April 4th 1986.
Date Uploaded: 08/24/2016
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jfthstv 08/25/2016 Reply
I vividly remembered this incident the day it happened. It actually started Thursday afternoon April 3rd and concluded early Saturday morning April 5th with the hostage being released unharmed and the suspect being taken into custody. The suspect, whose name was actually John Pasch, Jr, shot and killed his landlord and then murdered Chicago Police Officer Richard Clark who was the first responder on the scene. The cops actually used bright spotlights on Pasch's house to wear him out on the second night of the drama to get him to finally surrender. Then Police Superintendent Fred Rice also encouraged him to give up and he did. Pasch was convicted of his crimes and was sentenced to death when Illinois still had the death penalty. However, Pasch would die of natural causes while in prison in September 1993.
W.B. 08/26/2016 Reply
Shows you what happens when they pronounce an assailant's name, as they did here . . . but thanks for the background info of "what happened next." It's things like this that make this as much an historical reference guide as everything else.