Facebook Plays Role in Pittsburgh Hostage Case

The following is an excerpt from an article in:


The New York Times
Saturday, September 22, 2012

Facebook Plays Role in Pittsburgh Hostage Case

By CARMEN GENTILE and CHRISTINE HAUSER

PITTSBURGH — “i cant take it no more im done bro,” Klein Michael Thaxton, 22, wrote in a status update on Facebook on Friday.

In another post, he wrote: “this life im livn rite now i dnt want anymore ive lost everything and i aint gettn it back.”

For a tense six hours on Friday, Mr. Thaxton’s Facebook messages became part of an unfolding drama that started when he walked into an office building with a hammer and knife and took an employee hostage before eventually surrendering to the police. During the standoff, the police, firearms experts and hostage negotiators were called to the scene. Hundreds of onlookers and reporters gathered behind police barricades on the street, gazing up at the windows to try to get a glimpse of what was going on. Even Mr. Thaxton’s mother came to the building to try to convince her son to give himself up peacefully.

But it was the people with access to Mr. Thaxton’s Facebook account who may have had the best view into his thinking as the ordeal unfolded in the 16th floor in the offices of CW Breitsman Associates. For several hours, as Mr. Thaxton sent updates and Facebook friends wrote back, the flow of status messages chronicled the narrative of a man who seemed to have lost hope and a community that said it could relate, urging him to stay strong, to push through life’s hard knocks or to pray.

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