friday s armed rob rooe and ten-hour hostage stando highlighted what some say is a mayor problem. leesburg officials say their police department is severely understaed. that police force is entrusted with keeping the 36,000 residents of leesburg safe. officials say they have 20 fewer officers on the streets tha neighboring communities. darcy spencer joins us live in the city with more. reporter: fortunately the hostage situation ended with a peaceful surrender. it s also renewing debate in leesburg about police staffing. some are saying there aren t enough cops. it was a frightening ordeal in leesburg. this man, 49-year-old spencer allegedly robbed the pawnshop, eludes police, steals a car and holds an elderly couple hostage for eight hours before surrendering to authorities. this is what you hope for. the resolution we got out of it is exactly what we wanted to occur. no one got hurt. reporter: fortunately the situation ended peacefully. it s raised concerns the police
captioned by the national captioning institute www.ncicap.org we are on storm watch tonight. thunderstorms are headed our way. meteorologist steve rudin is struck in the latest. the stmsor are off to t we,st sitdte across extreme western maryland. the time lapse camera with the weatherbug netwoom, fr nationals park. isolated shownns gibeing to ve into the rosslyn ar , .owarsoutheast d.c. nothing associated with showers beside the light rain at this time. take a look at thermtoca s n, front of the north and west, storms and had of it. heavy activit as oscrwest rgviia. rglive doppl radar the storms siat across western rrma county, moving wa t erdheast he about 25 mp..h. they are affecting rosslyn, alexandria, and southeast d.c. coming up, the extended outlook, the thunderstorms tonight, and the rest of the weekend. our other top story, president obama s trip to africa. the president praised ghana as an example of democracy, but had tough words on corruption. the peopl
an elderly couple is freed after a suspected jewelry store robber holds them hostage for hours. two-alarm fire. several businesses are damaged after firefighters discover heavy flames coming from an office park. and more humid. after a very comfortable week, a little more heat and humidity return to our forecast. good morning. welcome to the 6:00 edition of news 4 today. saturday, july 11, 2009. i m kimberly suter in for hang yang. look at the forecast. steve is up in the weather center. good morning, steve. good morning, kimberly. good morning, everyone. we have a front heading our way today. not that it will be a washout, but the storm will bring us some showers and storms. this will happen much later in the day. for the most part, the day will be dry. here s what s happening right now, the temperatures are in the mid and upper 60s. dew points are up a little bit. still pretty comfortable. these numbers will start to go up as southwesterly winds go to humid weather. her
residents who saw this transpire called 911 who were alerted by the police to either stay inside their homes and lock the door or evacuate. we have also learned that shots were fired earlier today. we re not sure who the were from. so far, there is no reason to believe there are any injuries to report. we re keeping a close eye on the situation and will bring you an update if it becomes available. live from leesburg, pamela brown, abc 7 news. president obama continues his international trip with a visit to the vatican and the pope today. the president met with many world leaders and today set out with an audience with pope benedict. this was a personal meeting closely watched. the president and the pope disagree on one of the biggest issues, abortion, but that is not to say they cannot learn a little bit from each other, and they attempted to do just that. under the ornate and historic setting of the vatican, president obama met with pope benedict today during a highly