By Staff Writers

PORTLAND, OREGON - Tensions run high as local police surround the home of 38 year old man, Johnny McGraw. Reports say the man is holding his mother hostage and has made several large demands, including delivery of a helicopter and a large cache of weaponry, amidst the chaos following the man attempting to use the ‘sudo’ program to elevate his privileges.

Sources say the man had tried to run a program on his computer which required administrator rights, only to be met with the message - “jonnyrox is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported”.

“Wait. Reported to who?” the man was heard yelling. “The local feds? The CIA? Shit, shit, shit. No! Goddamnit, more secure OS my ass. They won’t take me alive!” The man then allegedly fired several shots into the ceiling before tying up his mother at gunpoint and started phoning the police, warning them to stay clear of his address.

“I feel like it’s kind of my fault. Johnny isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, besides the fact he hasn’t been using Linux very long,” Sam, a close friend of Johnny, told reporters outside the house as it was surrounded by police. “I told him to try out Void Linux, and well, he’s usually an Ubuntu user. Or was it Mint. Maybe Fedora. Anyway, regardless I may have forgotten to show him how to add himself to the sudoers file. He can also be a little paranoid, I guess.”

Police say that they are working tirelessly to negotiate with Mr. McGraw, although the man has only been getting increasingly agitated. “We feel like this was a preventable situation,” said Officer James Campbell. “What started as an ill-fated attempt to escalate privileges has only, in fact, escalated quickly into something else. We’ll chalk this one up as yet another example of an inexperienced user mixing with hardcore operating systems. I don’t understand much about it myself. Why couldn’t it have been drugs related or something?”

At press time, police are apparently very close to storming the house. “I think they’re about to go run kill -9 on his stupid ass,” Sam added.