Dad Called Hero After Hostage Ordeal
Cops say his quick thinking freed family caught in bank robbery plot.
Dec. 28, 2008— -- A Clinton, Md., man is being called a hero after police said he helped free his family from two men who allegedly took them hostage as part of an elaborate plan to rob a bank.
James Spruell told ABC News affiliate WJLA-TV in Arlington, Va., about the terrifying night he and his family spent Friday, when the two men allegedly held them prisoner in their own home.
"My wife comes home, they put a gun to her head, and he tied us up for 12 hours," Spruell told WJLA. "They followed my wife from work and they wanted her to facilitate a robbery from her job."
He said the two men were armed with a gun and knife, and they threatened to kill him, his wife and their 8- and 10-year-old sons.
"They held this family hostage overnight; they actually used electrical cords within the home to tie up the father and mother," Maryland State Police spokesman Greg Shipley said.
Police said it was all part of a plot to rob the SunTrust Bank in Silver Spring, where Spruell's wife works as branch manager, before it opened Saturday morning.
"They apparently were going to use her to facilitate a robbery of the bank prior to it opening at 9 this morning," Shipley said.
According to police, the would-be robbers planned for one of them to go to the bank with Spruell's wife. Spruell said he didn't want his family separated, though, so he made up a story to force them to change their plans.
"I made up a story and said my aunt was coming over at the same time that he wanted my wife to take off to her branch," Spruell said.
So the two men put the whole family in the car and one of the pair went with them, police said, but Spruell had another idea to get his family free.
He began driving erratically, and when a Maryland state trooper pulled them over and came to the window, he said he jumped into action.
"I hopped from the front to the back ... and I held him down and said, 'He got a gun, he got a gun, he got a gun,'" Spruell told WJLA.
Maryland State Trooper Barrington Cameron, who stopped the car on the outer loop of the beltway near Route 1, had seen someone in the back seat making furtive movements, police said. When Spruell told him the man had a gun, Cameron drew his weapon and arrested the suspect, police said.
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