A woman who was held hostage during an hours-long standoff with police in Corcoran earlier this summer spoke out for the first time Saturday, describing the traumatic experience and the financial devastation it left behind.
Police arrested Ryan Strandmark, 49, after he allegedly barricaded himself with a victim in a building on Cherry Lane on June 5. Authorities said Strandmark shot himself before turning himself in early the next morning.
The woman taken hostage that day is Janna Cummins. The suspect, Strandmark, is her ex-boyfriend.
Cummins said he lived in an outbuilding on her property that also serves as her home office.
On the morning of June 5, before she left her house to start work on the outbuilding, she said an argument broke out via text message that soon escalated.
“I had sent him some words after he had sent me some words, and he came running up the porch steps with two guns,” Cummins said.
“And he pointed it at me and said, ‘Today is a good day to die’ … and ‘if we didn’t want to be together, then we shouldn’t be alive.'”
Cummins said she was initially taken hostage at gunpoint in the living room of her parents’ home, where we sat for the interview.
“I said, ‘I don’t want to die because my father just died,’ and I didn’t want my mother to bury me and my father,” she said.
Cummins said Strandmark took her phone, so she made an excuse to go to the outbuilding behind the house, telling him she had to send an email to her boss.
“I said, ‘Because if I don’t do this, they’re going to call me because this is required every day,'” she explained.
“I sent the email super quickly. I just added the things I was working on today and wrote ‘Call 911’ in the subject line and then hit send really quickly.”
That was around 9:30 a.m., Cummins said, adding that she was still being held at gunpoint several hours later when the sirens went off. According to Cummins, Strandmark then fired a shot at the wall, which she described as a warning shot.
“When the police arrived, he fired a shot into the wall, not at anyone, just as a warning to stay away.”
A police negotiator secured her release that same evening after she was held hostage for eight hours, Cummins said.
According to police, Strandmark turned himself in the next morning at around 3:30 a.m.
Cummins says she was unharmed and Strandmark is still in the hospital for self-inflicted gunshot wounds at the time of this report.
He is accused of grievous bodily harm, kidnapping and threats of violence.
Cummins is grateful she survived and no one else was hurt, but now she has to clean up the damage. The financial devastation is on top of the trauma she has relived over and over again all summer.
“The most important thing is that we were OK and he was taken to the hospital immediately and that no one else was hurt. But the aftermath was that all the windows were broken except for one, the door was completely destroyed, the doors inside are destroyed. There are rubber bullets everywhere inside, pepper spray, you know… The entire contents of the office building had to be gutted,” Cummins said.
Just cleaning up the crime scene cost her more than $20,000, and insurance agreed to cover part of that, she said. Her friends set up a GoFundMe account to help her rebuild. If you’d like to help her with her cause, follow the link here.
Cummins stressed that her story is just one example of how complex domestic violence is for victims. She wants anyone who, like her, has felt trapped and isolated for years to know that they are not alone and that they, too, can be helped.
“It’s not that simple. When emotions are involved, there’s family, you know, a past, then there’s manipulation, then there’s emotional and physical abuse. It’s like you feel like you can’t leave. You feel trapped,” she said.
To fellow survivors and others who may also feel “isolated” or “stuck,” she said, “Just know that you are not alone. You are never alone, completely alone.”
“You can leave, you can be OK, and there is support for people out there. So I would say no matter what happens, you are stronger than you think. And just trust that you can do it.”
If you or someone you know is a victim of abuse, there are several resources available to help you. For immediate help, contact:
According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, more than 12 million people in the United States are affected by domestic violence each year.
The organizations listed above can help victims access resources such as safe shelters, advocacy groups, legal aid, and support groups.
The National Domestic Violence Hotline also offers tips on recognizing abuse and supporting victims of abuse. CLICK HERE to see these.
Other organizations that can help include:
Minnesota also has a list of many other resources for crime victims that can be found HERE.
