An 11-hour siege took place in East Row, where about 95 shots were fired from the East Row gun shop, The Canberra Times reported on this day 36 years ago. The proprietor of the T&T Sports shop, Mr Graham Thompson, was taken hostage. Mr Thompson was freed some three hours later and police continued telephone negotiations with a man in the shop shortly before 4am. The negotiations were punctuated by occasional bursts of fire from the shop, most aimed at police vehicles. Negotiator Detective Sergeant Mai Hoist, assured the man that he would be unharmed if he surrendered. The man left the building and was placed in a police vehicle and taken to the Civic police station by a circuitous route chosen to avoid reporters and photographers. Forensic specialists then moved in to recover cases from the cartridges and to record other evidence. One of the first civilians to emerge from the siege area after the man surrendered was Mr Philip Barton, manager of the Pancake Parlour. He and three other staff members had spent the siege trapped in the shop while gunshots sounded outside. He said they played chess, did crosswords, drank lots of coffee and listed to the gun shots through the night and morning.