Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, November 3, 1995 TAG: 9511030093
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MIAMI BEACH, FLA. LENGTH: Medium
TV viewers across the nation watched the hijacked bus in a low-speed chase along a main highway. Four times the bus, surrounded by police cars, stopped at the hijacker's request. Several times, he crouched down and gathered his whimpering young hostages around him.
When negotiations failed, police shot him to death at the bus door.
The hijacker was identified as Catalino ``Nick'' Sang, 42, a Dominican Republic native who had lived legally in the United States since 1984 and went to church every day.
Sang had walked off his job Wednesday night, telling his boss he couldn't handle the pressure. Thursday morning, he asked his daughter to pray for him, went to church, became hysterical and started ranting, said Fred Taylor, director of the Metro-Dade Police Department.
``He was not coherent and he made several threats. He was disturbed, yelling. He was not rational,'' Taylor said.
Sang was angry with the Internal Revenue Service and initially said he wanted to go to an IRS office, police said. His specific tax dispute was not immediately known. An IRS spokesman said the agency cannot discuss a private citizen's taxes.
``We were hostages because he owed money to the government,'' said Nubia Castellanos, a mother ordered onto the bus by Sang as she helped her autistic son get on.
During the hijacking, Sang carried a bag and told police he had a bomb. The device turned out to be one of the children's respirators and police found no weapon.
The youngsters were on the way to their school when Sang forced his way aboard at a stop near the church off an expressway southwest of downtown Miami. He pushed aside Castellanos and told bus driver Alicia Chapman in Spanish, ``I'm taking control,'' police said.
Chapman, Castellanos, a school aide and 13 children in kindergarten through fourth grade, were on the bus when Sang seized it. The aide, Castellanos, her child and another student were let off during stops he ordered.
``The bus driver said she felt threatened, because the subject, when he argued with her, would reach inside his jacket. She thought he might shoot her,'' said Pat Brickman, a Metro-Dade police spokesman.
``She kept the subject calm, she kept reasoning with him. She said `I'll take you where you want to go.' I would give her a lot of credit not just for keeping the kids calm but for keeping this hijacker in a lucid state so that he didn't shoot anybody,'' he said.
Schools spokesman Henry Fraind said Chapman, 46, is a ``modern-day hero.''
The ordeal ended outside Joe's Stone Crab, a popular restaurant at the southern tip of Miami Beach. The bus came to a stop; one child jumped out and police fired one shot at Sang.
Police then swarmed the front door and more shots were fired. Sang was then dragged along the sidewalk and into an alley.
At least one youngster was cut by flying glass from a window broken when police fired their shots and needed stitches on his forehead, school officials said. None of the students was seriously hurt.
After being taken inside the restaurant, the children were put on a different bus to their school, where they and their parents hugged and wept.
Carlos Brouwer described the reunion with his 7-year-old son, Nicolas, as ``probably the best experience I've ever had in my life.''
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB