RIVERSIDE, Mo. — UPDATE 7:20 PM 2/16/2018: A man has been charged after an eight-hour standoff with police involving a hostage at the Argosy Casino in Riverside.
Bobby Jo Dennison, 44, is charged with kidnapping in the second degree, tampering with a motor vehicle in the second degree, and resisting arrest. He could face up to seven years in prison on the first two counts and four years for resisting arrest.
Riverside police said no one resisted officers when they entered the hotel room and no one was injured.
The standoff began at about 5:30 p.m. Thursday. Riverside police say hotel security guards went to check on a disturbance at one of the hotel rooms. When they arrived, one woman exited the room, but a man held the second woman in the room and refused to come out.
Dennison allegedly threatened to cut the throat of the woman in the room with him. He demanded a car so he and his hostage could leave but a SWAT team entered the room around 1:30 a.m. and placed him under arrest.
It wasn't immediately clear how the man knew the two women involved in the incident.
Police said they took measures to ensure the safety of everyone else staying at the hotel, even evacuating the rooms in the floors above and below the floor where the standoff took place.
Dennison is being held on a $50,000 cash-only bond.
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