Police sniper ends Fort Wayne hostage crisis, killing man holding 3-year-old

An Indiana hostage crisis has ended with a police sniper shooting a man who pulled a woman off a city bus in Fort Wayne, shot her dead and then took a 3-year-old boy.

The child was carried from a house where the suspect, 45-year-old Kenneth Knight, had holed up late Wednesday and police announced soon after that he was dead, the Associated Press reported.

Indiana police had confirmed the hostage situation about five hours after Knight pulled the woman off the city bus in traffic about 8 a.m.

He fatally shot her about 25 feet away before fleeing into the surrounding neighborhood with the child, Fox News reported.

While the relationship between the suspect, the victim — 49-year-old Jacqueline Bouvier Hardy — and the child was not immediately clear, a police spokeswoman said a protective order had been filed against Knight in the past few days.

Police Chief Rusty York told reporters that Knight was killed by a single shot from a sniper.

A resident who lives near the house where Knight was holding the child, Darnell Glaspie, described the dramatic climax to the AP as it happened:

"They're going in right now. They were all in the front yard, I heard a big boom and then I saw a bunch of them run up there in the house. I just saw about eight of them go up there in the house."

The Guardian-Express wrote that children children walking to school and waiting at bus stops were among those who witnessed the initial shooting.

Two nearby elementary schools were locked down as a precaution.