Police kill suspect holding hostage on Greyhound bus

Tuesday, Dec. 1, 1998 | 4:12 a.m.

The Elko police officer boarded the bus in this town along Interstate 80 after the suspect ordered all the estimated 25 passengers and the driver off the bus about 1 p.m.

The bus driver, Jeff Peterson, managed to radio his dispatcher, who called police.

The officer tried unsuccessfully to persuade the suspect to drop the knife, then shot the suspect once in the upper body when he lunged at him with the knife, police said.

"The police officer did everything he could to get him to let the little gal go," Peterson said.

No one else was hurt. The woman hostage, who was shaken but unharmed, and the suspect had been traveling together on the bus for two days, passengers said.

Elko Police Capt. Bill Bauer described the suspect as "distraught and out of it," but it wasn't immediately known what prompted the hostage situation.

"The guy was coming from the back, had a knife to her throat," said Joe Paulson, a passenger on the bus from Colorado.

"I turned around to look at him. He yelled get off the ... bus," Paulson said.

The name of the man killed was not released. He appeared to be in his early 20s, police said. The name of the officer also was being withheld.

The bus was on a normal cross-country route from New York to San Francisco.