A Tuscarora Indian who fled to a reservation after being indicted on charges of taking up to 20 people hostage at a North Carolina newspaper says he will fight extradition from New York, where he was arrested. ``I think I'd be safer up here,'' Timothy Jacobs said Tuesday, according to his attorney, Lewis Pitts. Jacobs was arrested Tuesday near Oneida, N.Y., after state police tried to stop him for speeding and he crashed his car into the back of an empty school bus, authorities said. No one was hurt, said Sgt. Josephine Townsend. North Carolina authorities said extradition proceedings would begin immediately. Pitts said he would fight extradition ``tooth and nail.'' He said he hoped to get Jacobs released on bail and returned to the Onondaga Indian reservation south of Syracuse, where police said Jacobs had lived since last week. Jacobs, 20, was indicted Dec. 6 in the takeover in February at The Robesonian newspaper in Lumberton. Eddie Hatcher, 31, who was indicted on the same charges, was arrested the day the indictments were returned. A jury acquitted the two Tuscarora Indians Oct. 14 of federal hostage-taking and firearms charges, despite their admission that they used two sawed-off shotguns to take over the newspaper office for 10 hours. During the trial, they argued they had to take over the newspaper to save their lives because of evidence they had of official corruption in Robeson County and of law enforcement involvement in drug trafficking. The siege ended after Gov. Jim Martin agreed to form a task force to investigate their allegations. Later, however, the task force said there was little evidence to substantiate their charges.
