Ex-bank hostage suspect jailed in SWAT incident
WEST HOMESTEAD, Pa. (AP) — A western Pennsylvania man already on probation for holding several people hostage with a fake bomb during an aborted bank robbery in 2008 has been jailed after a SWAT team responded once he allegedly argued with a neighbor then barricaded himself in an apartment.
Online court records don’t list an attorney for 44-year-old Charles Cottle, of West Homestead.
Local police called for a SWAT team after Cottle was heard “racking” a shotgun after he refused to exit the apartment about 11:30 p.m. Monday. Cottle and a woman surrendered about five hours later.
Cottle was sentenced to jail followed by five years’ probation in 2009 for an April 2008 incident at a McKeesport bank. Authorities said Cottle had lost his job, mother and girlfriend and hoped to end his life by drawing a police response by taking hostages.