A man suffering from bipolar depression and carrying a knife tried to kidnap three people and threatened to kill them early Saturday at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in New Orleans, authorities said.
Shaun Chapman, 37, corralled all three victims in the hotel's third-floor bar before a maintenance worker and an off-duty police officer intervened, police said in documents filed in Criminal District Court. Officers booked him with three counts of attempted kidnapping and one of aggravated assault.
Chapman's attorney at his bond hearing, Jacob McCarty, said in Magistrate Court that he was suffering with bipolar depression and hadn't been medicated for months.
Victim at bus stop
Police said Chapman first pulled a knife at around midnight on a 29-year-old man waiting at the bus stop at the intersection of Loyola and Girod streets, just outside the hotel. He forced the man toward the hotel, ordered a security guard, 24, there to throw down her phone and radio then led both victims inside.
They took an employee elevator to the third floor and entered the 8 Block Kitchen bar, where Chapman threatened a bartender, 29, police said. She ran toward the manager's office, but Chapman, herding his first two victims, caught her, telling her she would be the "first to die.
At that point, a maintenance worker wrestled Chapman to the ground and disarmed him. He took Chapman back to the first floor, where Chapman tried to escape but was tackled by an off-duty Louisiana State Police trooper, police said.
New Orleans police soon arrived and arrested him.
Magistrate Commissioner Jay Daniels set Chapman's bond at $100,000 Saturday afternoon.