Two people were found dead after an hours-long hostage situation at a doctor's office in Texas, according to police and US media reports Wednesday.
The drama in the state capital Austin began Tuesday afternoon and lasted more than five hours, and it was not immediately known how many people were taken hostage or who did it.
A special police unit used a bullhorn to communicate with the hostage taker.
"Your life is very important to me," a member of the SWAT team said over the loudspeaker, according to the Austin American-Statesman newspaper. "And I know life is very important to you."
Police first sent in a robot, then had SWAT team members go into the medical office, where they found two bodies.
"The SWAT situation has ended. Two subjects have been located and were pronounced deceased," the Austin police department tweeted late Tuesday night. It gave no details on the incident and said more information would be provided Wednesday.
It was not immediately known if the two people whose bodies were found were the only ones involved in the hostage taking, the newspaper said.
The language used by the SWAT team negotiators -- it was audible outside the medical office -- suggested that an Austin doctor was one of the hostages and the hostage taker was another doctor, the newspaper reported.
"You don't deserve to go through this... for all you have done for others... that is why I want to help you work through this. You have saved a lot of lives," a hostage negotiator could be heard saying, the paper said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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