LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Three women were rescued after being held hostage by a Louisville man during an hours-long standoff.
Louisville Metro Police (LMPD) was dispatched to the 1300 block of Seelbach Avenue around 3:30 p.m. Wednesday on a report of a "possible wanted person."
According to an arrest citation, officers arrived on scene and saw that the front door was open and a man sitting on a piece of furniture next to the front door. That man was 54-year-old Cordell Jones.
Police said they called for Jones to try and get him to come out, but he ordered a woman inside the house to shut and lock the door.
The citation shows officers set up a perimeter around the home and called for backup. Officers and detectives then received more information about Jones possibly being involved in a wanton endangerment situation earlier in the day.
Based off this information, LMPD said they believed that Jones was possibly armed and dangerous so they called for SWAT and the Hostage Negotiation Team (HNT) to respond to the scene.
While on the scene, detectives drafted and reviewed a search warrant and quickly discovered that there were possible hostages being held inside the home's cellar.
Court documents say that one of the hostages was able to use her cell phone to text a friend who then called 911 and let dispatch know what was happening. HNT negotiators were able to text the hostage and figure out that she and two other women were in fact being held in the cellar.
With all this information, police said SWAT was able to go inside the home, rescue the three hostages and arrest Jones.
The victims were interviewed by LMPD after the rescue. They said that when police arrived, Jones allegedly told them to shut and lock the front door and go into the cellar. They said that he then became "verbally more aggressive" and they felt like they didn't have a choice but to all go down into the cellar.
The citation says that one of the victims even said that she felt Jones would have pushed her into the cellar if she didn't go on her own.
Police said the cellar was extremely small, had no lights, a dirt floor and rats crawling around.
The women told police that after Jones shut the door, they could hear him moving items around and putting them on top of the cellar door. Documents say that they could see the light between the slats of wood fade as he put more items on top of the door.
LMPD said the victims were huddled in a corner for hours in fear of even moving, while Jones was upstairs refusing to open the door for police.
Jones was arrested around 9 p.m. and charged with three counts of unlawful imprisonment. His bond was set at $150,000 full cash according to the Commonwealth's Attorney's office.
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