Downtown businesses recall hostage taking Thursday

Business employees who were close to where the hostage situation took place couldn’t believe what unfolded on Thursday afternoon. Staff from Modern Aesthetics and Bread Milk and Honey recounted their tales during the harrowing time.

“We actually didn’t realize anything was going on and we had two ladies come upstairs from the business below us and they said ‘there is police outside, do you know what’s going on’ and we said no. We looked out of the windows right away because we are kind of like removed from everything. We looked out the windows and there was cops surrounding everything and actually in the ally right beside us. They were cops with guns out a blazing and they had them pointed at the door at the law office next door,” said Jocelyn Anderson, Administrator with Modern Aesthetics.

“Within about 20 minutes of me noticing the first vehicle pull up, we were asked to evacuate so that’s when things took a little bit of a turn, it got pretty serious. In that same breath everyone was really swift and it was a really easy, safe evacuation. There wasn’t too much of a kerfuffle so to speak. Everybody was in good shape and we got outside to the corner and then from there it was a lot of just waiting and a lot of just curiosity for about an hour,” said Ava-Marie Hutton with Bread Milk and Honey.

Employees say that despite the hostage situation they do feel safe working downtown.