Bronx Man Takes Hostages and Threatens to Use a Grenade

A 58-year-old man who was distraught about recently getting evicted had a six hour stand-off with police yesterday where he held two women hostage inside his apartment in the Melrose section of the Bronx and threatened to blow up the building with a grenade. Kirkland Smith did not have a grenade, only knives. During the standoff he would yell at police, "Listen to this!" and then slap one of the women, who was tied to a chair. Police told reporters, "He threatened to kill the women, saying he had nothing to lose." Smith was on parole after spending 18 years in prison for an assortment of crimes and on bail awaiting trial after getting picked up in November for selling methadone in front of a school. Police credit George Roper, his parole officer, with doing a masterful job in talking him down and convincing him to surrender. The Daily News mentions that one of the two hostages immediately went and bought $20 in scratch-off tickets, telling the paper, "I was just trapped in an apartment for six hours, how would you feel? I want to play my numbers."