White House hopeful Hillary Clinton expressed gratitude last night after a hostage-taking incident at her presidential campaign office in New Hampshire ended peacefully and that her staff and volunteers were safe.
"It's been a difficult, but eventually gratifying day the way it worked out," Ms Clinton told reporters in Washington after the hostage-taking suspect surrendered.
"We've had nothing on our minds except the safety of these young people who work for me."
Ms Clinton said she was heading to New Hampshire to thank police and talk to her staffers.
Police arrested the man who seized several hostages at the campaign office fter a tense six-hour standoff.
Live television images showed a man emerging from the office in Rochester, New Hampshire in a white shirt and red tie with silver duct tape wrapped around his waist over what he had earlier told police were explosives.
The man, identified by media as Leeland Eisenberg, was arrested after unwrapping the tape and putting his hands in the air.
Ms Clinton was not in New Hampshire and canceled a speaking date in Virginia immediately after news of the incident broke.
At least three people had been taken hostage.
A woman campaign volunteer emerged from the building hours earlier and was quickly escorted to safety, witnesses said. A second was released soon after. A man in his 20s was escorted to safely after the hostage-taker was seized by police.
Heavily armed police in black protective vests and helmets patrolled the area near the office in the state that helps kick off the 2008 White House race. Others restrained crowds behind yellow police tape as news helicopters hovered overhead.
The first political caucus in Iowa on January 3rd and the first primary in New Hampshire on January 8th begin the state-by-state battle for the Democratic and Republican party nominations in the 2008 race for the White House.
The Rochester campaign offices of Democrats Barack Obama and John Edwards, who are competing with Ms Clinton, were evacuated along with nearby businesses. Schools in the area locked their doors during the four-hour standoff.