Nearly five decades after a wired shotgun and a live radio broadcast held Indianapolis in suspense for 63 hours, the story is getting the primetime treatment. MGM+’s eight-part series “American Hostage” dramatizes the 1977 Tony Kiritsis hostage crisis, with Jon Hamm playing the Indianapolis radio newsman who became an unlikely go-between during one of the city’s most harrowing standoffs.
The crisis began on Feb. 8, 1977, when Kiritsis walked into mortgage broker Dick Hall’s East Market Street office, took him hostage, and wired a shotgun to the back of Hall’s neck, according to Fox 59. Kiritsis was reportedly angry because he believed Hall and his father’s mortgage company had undercut his property-development efforts. As detailed by RogerEbert.com, Kiritsis walked Hall out of the building and to his apartment, then called WIBC radio to air his grievances to newsman Fred Heckman.
Heckman, a trusted Indianapolis journalist and WIBC newsman, recorded Kiritsis’s statements and broadcast them, giving the gunman a platform to voice his demands, Fox 59 reports. Kiritsis used that airtime to claim Hall had tried to swindle a property from him and demanded an apology, $5 million and a promise of immunity from prosecution, according to A&E. Kiritsis trusted Heckman enough that the newsman ended up quarterbacking WIBC’s coverage of the entire crisis, per Fox 59.
A Newsman Pulled Into the Negotiation
Heckman’s role went well beyond reporting. He remained on the air during the crisis and held private calls with Kiritsis, while also communicating with law enforcement as authorities worked the case, according to Fox 59. Carl Heckman, Fred’s son, said his father chose to do whatever he could to save Dick Hall’s life — a decision that placed a journalist squarely inside a life-or-death negotiation rather than simply covering it from the sidelines…