The Lansford police officer who was taken hostage at gunpoint Friday night by another borough officer tried but failed to keep his abductor from committing suicide, the Carbon County sheriff said Saturday.
Sheriff Dwight Nothstein identified Officer Chris Ondrus as the hostage and said he was not injured but "very shook up." He said he spoke with Ondrus after the other officer, identified by authorities as David Midas, shot himself shortly before 8 p.m. on a busy Jim Thorpe street.
Authorities said Midas drove the hostage to Broadway in the borough's downtown, where there was a struggle between the men before Midas shot himself on the street.
Nothstein said the struggle was over the gun. He said Ondrus "tried to get the gun away from him but he got away and he stepped out of the car and he shot himself."
Jim Dugan of Dugan's Store, which is on Broadway, said he was in the shop, getting ready to watch the Jim Thorpe Area High School football game on television when he heard the shot, which he thought was a firecracker.
He went outside and saw a man wearing civilian clothes lying in the street near the sidewalk.
He said another man was near the prone man, crying, "Dave, why? Dave, why?"
Dugan said he knew Midas because Midas also worked as a part-time police officer in Jim Thorpe and sometimes came into the store, which Dugan helps run and is owned by his brother. He said he did not recognize Midas as the shooting victim.
Dugan said he did not see a weapon. He said there was a car across the street with its driver's side door open but that it was not a marked police vehicle.
"I have no idea what was going on," he said.
