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The Cokeville Elementary School hostage crisis occurred on Friday, May 16, 1986 in Cokeville, Wyoming, when former town marshal David Young, 43, and his wife Doris Young, 47, took 154 hostages – 136 children and 18 adults – at Cokeville Elementary School.
Transporting ten firearms and an improvised gasoline bomb, the couple entered the school and corralled students and faculty into a single classroom to hold them for ransom. With the bomb trigger tied to his wrist, David threatened the group that he might, at any time, detonate the device.
After a two-and-a-half hour standoff, David became increasingly agitated and decided to leave the room, transferring the trigger string to his wife Doris' wrist. Eventually Doris inadvertently lifted her arm and the bomb went off prematurely. Returning to the scene, David fatally shot his wife, wounded a teacher, then committed suicide. All the hostages survived, though 79 were later hospitalized with burns and injuries, the majority of which were severe.
David Young was the only police officer in Cokeville for six months in 1979. After being fired for misconduct, he moved to Tucson, Arizona, where he married Doris Young. Both David and Doris had ties to white supremacist groups, including the Posse Comitatus and the Aryan Nations. Prior to the hostage crisis, David had tested a similar bomb in a sealed school bus in Arizona, destroying it.
David and Doris both returned to Cokeville on May 16, 1986. At 1:00 pm, they pulled up to the Cokeville Elementary School and unloaded a gasoline bomb, along with five rifles and five handguns. Vengeance for having been fired did not seem to have been the motive, but rather a philosophy recorded in journal entries referring to a Brave New World where he wanted to reign over intelligent children. He had been aware of above-average achievement scores from Cokeville's education system.
From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_Cokeville_Elementary_School_hostage_crisis
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