CONFERENCE

John

Wojtowicz, left, talks with policeman outside Brooklyn bank while officer at right drops his gun. Wojtowicz later returned to bank, where he and another man held hostages.

AP Wirephoto

10

2 Gays Hold Bank Hostages

Two

NEW YORK (P) homosexuals took over a Brooklyn branch bank yesterday and held eight persons hostage for hours at gunpoint. They obtained the release of a fellow homosexual from a hospital psychi atric ward and demanded a plane to fly the three of them out of Kennedy Airport.

However. Ernest Aarons, described by one of the gunmen. John Wojtowicz, as his "wife." balked at going, saying he feared his selfstyled husband because "he doesn't love me anymore.

Eventually, one bank

guard was released, leaving a man and six women as hostages. The gunmen proposed to take one woman and the bank manager, Robert Barrett. 43. with them on the plane as hostages.

AT ONE POINT. several of the more than 200 policemen surrounding the bank acceeded to a demand they drop their guns. One of the gunmen walked out of the small branch bank. shook hands with two patrolmen and walked back in again.

The bank was still under siege late last night. A bank

spokesman said the gunmen walked in shortly before 3 p.m.

Police held their fire to protect the captives.

Wojtowicz told interviewers over a telephone from the bank:

"We know they'll catch us eventually, but we'll stop and talk and maybe release a few hostages at a time until we get where we're going. I won't tell you where.'

""

THE DRAMA BEGAN as an apparently simple robbery of the Sheepshead Bay branch of the Chase Man-

hattan bank in Brooklyn. Wojtowicz boasted that "we got $29,000."

But when the men were trapped by the arrival of police, they began evolving escape plans, eventually deciding on a plane flight out of Kennedy.

Meanwhile. Aarons was brought to the scene in an effort to placate Wojtowicz and gain release of the hostages.

A spokesman at Kings County Hospital said AarOns was admitted to the ward psychiatric there Monday night.