PINE PLAINS, N.Y. - Police say a carpenter who brought a shotgun to an upstate New York middle school and held a principal hostage for more than two hours was upset by the treatment of US soldiers.
The court complaint against Christopher Craft Sr. says he threatened to use deadly force to try to get school officials and police to contact the media with his message concerning “the wrongful treatment’’ of military personnel.
Several people who gathered at Stissing Mountain Middle School, about 90 miles north of New York City, say Craft’s elder son had enlisted in the Army.
That information could not immediately be confirmed yesterday.
Craft sneaked a disassembled shotgun into the school and put it together in a bathroom.
He then confronted Principal Robert Hess in the main office.
