New York, Nov 10 (THAINDIAN NEWS) A forty-year-old former student who had held the principal and the assistant principal of the Stissing Mountain High School as hostages has finally released the hostages and has also surrendered to the police.

Pine Plains Town Supervisor Gregg Pulver said that, “the man in custody is Christopher Craft of Pine Plains and the hostage was Stissing Mountain Middle School Principal Bob Hess”. He didn’t fire any shot and all the staff and the students are perfectly safe.

Trooper Tom Jones Jr. said that, “the police are going room by room through the combined middle and senior high schools as a precaution, evacuating students as they go. Evidently, there is some speculation that he (the gunman) had a loved one in the military and somehow this is some contrived scheme on his part to do something about that,” Pulver told The Associated Press Radio.

Police were in constant contact with the suspect throughout the standoff, he said.

Dutchess County Deputy Sheriff T.J. Hanlon said the suspect had used a long gun in the standoff that started about 7:45 a.m. and ended after around 3 hours.

“I’m thinking the whole time, ‘How can this happen in our little town?’” mother of a sixth grader, said as she waited for her child.