Police kill man who held bus passengers hostage in Rio

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brandishing a fake gun, a man today took dozens of hostages on a bus in Brazil and threatened to set the vehicle on fire with gasoline before police shot him dead in a four-hour standoff broadcast live on television.

All of the hostages were freed unharmed in the confrontation, which unfolded on an 8-mile-long bridge linking Rio de Janeiro to the Niteroi municipality across Guanabara Bay.

The seized bus was coming from Sao Gonçalo, a community struggling with poverty and violence that lies across a bay. Many people use the bridge to travel to and from work in Rio, and hundreds of vehicles were backed up as police closed lanes and tried to get control of the dangerous situation.

Police initially said the man had a gun and a knife. Later, however, Lt. Col. Maurilio Nunes of the elite police squad that handled the hostage-taking said the gun was fake.

The man took 37 people hostage on the bus about 5:30 a.m., as commuter traffic was increasing, police said. He released two hostages, then another two, and then two more, separately. Later, he stepped out of the bus, threw an object resembling a bag and was shot by a sniper.

The man's intentions were unclear and he did not make any particular demands, according to police. The standoff was broadcast live on Brazil's TV Globo, riveting Brazilians in a nation accustomed to high levels of crime.

Gov. Wilson Witzel of Rio de Janeiro state praised the police, saying the hostage situation was high-profile but that armed criminals are regularly "terrorizing" people out of sight of most Brazilians.