Is wide screen TV really that bad in Amsterdam?

[nick1979]

Siege Ends After Armed Man Takes Hostages in Amsterdam

AP
Monday: Dutch police stand near the entrance to the Rembrandt Tower.
Monday, March 11, 2002

AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands — A gunman apparently upset with the quality of wide-screen television grabbed as many as 40 hostages Monday in the tallest building in the Dutch capital. The siege ended after about eight hours, with local television reporting that he was shot by police or had shot himself.


"It's over," said police spokesman Ron van de Veen.

The state-financed NOS television said the man shot himself but it was unclear if he was dead or alive. The independent RTL Television said everyone had safely left the building.

An ambulance raced toward the building with its siren blaring, but reporters were kept well away from the scene — too far to hear if shots were fired. About 30 minutes earlier, eight police cars escorted a bus through police cordons.

The man entered the 35-story Rembrandt Tower, former headquarters for Philips Electronics, shortly after most of the businesses inside opened for the day and took as many as 40 people hostage.

Before the hostage-taking ended, police were negotiating with the man, reported by some to be armed with a machine gun and explosives. After three hours of talks, six women were seen leaving the 35-story Rembrandt Tower office complex.



AP
More workers reportedly fled down a fire escape. Police and firefighters evacuated neighboring office buildings.

Reached by telephone by The Associated Press, a security guard in the lobby had said, "There are eight of us here. I am one of them." He said he was sitting a few yards from the gunman. "He is armed," he said before hanging up.

Earlier, the same guard told Belgian television, "A man came in with weapons and a bomb." Speaking moments after the gunman seized the building, he said "the man is very calm, but is holding a gun. He wants results."

As the hostage-taking dragged on, the gunman apparently plastered protest signs in windows of the building as high as the 17th floor.

In a statement faxed from the office tower to NOS, the gunman said he was protesting the "arrogant manipulation by the vendors of wide screen television," and complained that consumers were being misled about the quality of the product. Florax declined to comment on the man's demands.

The four-page statement, reproducing parts of six letters of complaint previously sent to a Dutch newspaper and the Consumer Board, was printed on blank paper. One page had images comparing wide screen television with a regular screen.

Ewald van Kouwen, spokesman for the Consumer board, said the public body had several telephone and written contacts with the man, whom he refused to name.

"We dealt with him like hundreds of thousands of other callers. We weren't threatened and there was no reason for us to contact the police," he said.

Fifty-six companies have offices in the building, and Philips Electronics had its headquarters there until it moved to a nearby office complex last year.

A spokesman for Philips said the company had been named by the gunman in talks with police. The spokesman, Hans Schouten, declined to say whether the company knew his identity.

Philips, which has undergone a restructuring, fired 18,000 people from its global operations last year and is planning several thousand more job cuts this year. There was no immediate indication the gunman was a disgruntled employee.

One of the signs put in windows said: "Kleisterlee Lies," referring to the chairman of Royal Philips Electronics, Gerard Kleisterlee. Another said: "We Mislead," an apparent reference to the company's advertising campaign "We Make Things Better."

NOS television said the man was armed with a machine gun, but Florax said she could not confirm the type of gun he carried. NOS quoted an employee in the building as saying the gunman also had explosives.

A woman at Rabo Securities reached by telephone said she heard from colleagues in the building that 40 hostages were being held. She spoke on condition of anonymity.

"We are waiting for a signal to be evacuated," she said from her office on the 5th floor, on condition of anonymity. "I'd like to get out of here and get some lunch and be home by this evening."

[Lanesra]

Tell me, when they filmed the 40 hostages did the all fit on a wide screen tv ,i'm sure they wouldn't all have fitted on a 4:3 tv.If so they could've told him how good it was and he might have let them go

[nick1979]

quote:

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Originally posted by Lanesra:
Tell me, when they filmed the 40 hostages did the all fit on a wide screen tv ,i'm sure they wouldn't all have fitted on a 4:3 tv.If so they could've told him how good it was and he might have let them go

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LOL!!! [img]graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[Melusine]

I typed it all out here...

http://pandemonium.phpwebhosting.com...t=ST;f=6;t=482

Personally I think a hostage situation is a hostage situation, and that's serious no matter what the cause is. This man was clearly not wholly sane and I think it's sad to laugh about that.... just MHO [img]smile.gif[/img]

[nick1979]

Sorry Mel..Were laughing at the reason for the situation not the situation itself.