Two children and two adults are being held hostage in a robbery attempt gone wrong at a home in Harvey, Illinois, Tuesday. The standoff has lasted at least 15 hours.
Officials said two robbery suspects, one armed, took six children and two adults hostage in the southern Chicago suburb. Four of the children were freed after the police negotiated with the captors for hours.
A SWAT team was called in to handle the situation. One of the released children has breathing problems. A SWAT team member rescued him from a porch after the gunmen released him, Fox News reports.
At least 200 hundred officers from 20 different agencies were deployed in the 14700-block of Seely Avenue in Harvey. Families have been evacuated from nearby houses and residents in the surrounding area were told to remain inside their homes, reports abc7Chicago.
Around 100 residents along the block are temporarily relocated and a group of 45 employees in a nearby school preparing for the upcoming school sessions has been escorted to safety.
Two police officers were injured in exchange of fire during the long drawn out standoff, police officer Sean Howard of Chicago city's police department said. Both of them are in stable condition now.
It remained unclear whether the captors and the hostages are related. Reports state that a negotiator is in constant communication with the armed hostage-taker through a window. "There have been no bumps in the road yet," Harvey spokesman Sean Howard said of the negotiating effort, reports the Associated Press. "We hope to get this resolved peacefully."
No fatalities have been reported so far.
