I really enjoyed the presentation of this piece. I understand that may not be a popular sentiment, but the graphics and interactivity worked well in creating a sort of atmosphere as well as helping me get a better understanding of the situation.<p>It wasn't perfect, but it was interesting and memorable. I could perceive the difficulty the authorities faced in trying to storm the bunker. It was neat.<p>And of course, the article still looks beautiful when put through the Readability extension. For people complaining about interactivity, you can use extensions to disable it (although I understand the frustration and also wish there was a built in way to disable it).<p>And more on topic: it was highly unsettling to me that Mr. Dykes could kill Mr. Poland even after the gift of fresh eggs and homemade jelly. The gunshot noises really got to me. The presentation of this article felt more real and visceral than most articles do. I'm glad I bothered to put on the headphones and try it.
Interesting story that kept my attention to the end, despite the intrusive multimedia elements (I'm reading this very late at night, with people asleep nearby, and one of the videos started auto-playing and wouldn't let me pause it).<p>I would say all parties involved, from bus driver Poland to the 911 operator, the FBI and the local sheriff, behaved admirably and at times heroically. For those men to jump down that hole and take bullets to rescue the boy, notably the fellow who located the kid in the dark and shielded him with his body, prepared to take bullets from the kidnapper to save the boy--incredible stuff.<p>This guy Dykes was a tragic kind of figure, the kind of ticking time bomb that we need to identify earlier on to prevent the kinds of mass shootings that occur with all too much regularity in our country.<p>I'm not sure what you can do with someone who stays just this side of the law but is clearly deranged and unstable, but there's got to be something beyond just ignoring him and letting him fester.
9 seconds planned for th rescue, 5 actual minutes, that must have felt like a very, very long time.<p>- Is it possible to invent radio-based, directional weapons able to kill through walls? e.g. X-rays or microwave?<p>- I'm surprised the federal agent asks for permission to kill the criminal. As long as there is a hostage, isn't the self-defense considered a default?
Slightly OT: One small detail that surprised me was that since the daughter of the kidnapper had not enough money to pay for the funeral she had to keep the ashes in her trailer.<p>Is there no such thing as a legal obligation to bury the dead in the US?
The FBI Hostage Rescue Team is an amazing group of professionals, the premier hostage rescue team in the US. They are the civilian equivalent of Delta Force as they can't normally operate in the US. Historically Delta and the FBI HRT even do hostage training together.<p>Pretty amazing how highly trained these people are
Is it just me, or is this a good example of how not to present content on the web. I could hardly read any of that article - the animated background thing took forever to load, and was incredibly distracting. There's a story in there somewhere, I'm sure, but I just didn't have time - it was quicker to google the bad guy's name and read the story on another site.
I am surprised this came from the Wall Street Journal. What the heck? There is too much going on the page. It takes away from the story thus the videos, animation etc. Can't read it..