HOSTAGE NEGOTIATION FOR POLICE PART 1

[Music] according to cars 503 504 505 and 506. the european american bank hempstead turnpike and james street recorded alarm hold up in progress one one three four five hundred three five hundred four four give me more pit bills five hundred five four four [Applause] headquarters shots fly at the rear of the bank one male white wearing a green jacket blue dungarees one male black wearing a tan jacket blue pants just went into the rear of alexander's men and boy shop 504 to all units i've just observed two armed suspects one male white the other a male black subjects exited the front of alexander's approach the parked vehicle and have re-entered the store frank belmont tv middleweight frank belmont yo tv police emergency operator 42. this is al cook of 728 pounds avenue east meadow and i have a tenant upstairs and there's an awful lot of noise about that i think we're getting killed [Music] is this your own home sir and you rent the apartment to these people i already may have the phone number you're calling from please 994-5806 and that's a possible assault i'll take care of it i'll dispatch a car on that and would you meet the patrol car and show me the apartment is please thank you good morning my name is officer kenny can you tell me your name please uh al cook and what's going on mr what kind of a fighter well i know there's somebody fighting upstairs there's a little noise up there now yeah who's upstairs you know who's upstairs up there never know his name but you know who else is up there i don't know sounds like a lot of people up there how many people do you think are upstairs i need about two up there listen do me a favor go back inside that room okay go back inside close the door and stay in there till you're here for me i'm gonna get some help all right okay close that door mr lambert this is hello mr lambet my name is officer kenny i'd like to talk to you leave me alone mr lambert who's upstairs with you damn it i'll show you i mean business hey cook don't come out of there you in a 30 day gloria's coming with me that's what i'm doing here i'm taking her with me laura's not going she certainly is going with me she is too and you're not going to stop me laurie you go upstairs now no laura you stay right where you are get [ __ ] head away from me i'm gonna no you're not get the hell get out of here get back get back you want to play games wise ass you're too getting back there come on look call anybody you want go get that call come on glory take it easy will you i know they're behind us worrying i can see them [Applause] [Music] the uniformed officer at a hostage incident can either control or eliminate the opportunity for a successful outcome by his initial actions if the job is done right the offender is contained once he's located first officers take positions of maximum observation to block escape movement near the barricade is brought to a stop and all adjoining locations cleared those who are caught within the inner perimeter are evacuated to a safe area outside the line of fire 541 to headquarters this unit is present command frequency is designated and communications between all personnel is established at the earliest possible moment as crime scene investigators arrive at the staging area to log and photograph the incident they receive assignments from the command post leader set up on a second okay a rifle in an ar-15 and if you have tactical teams usually they'll move in to strengthen the inner perimeter with invisible deployment rear of the bank and on a roof we're going to use this as a staging area park your ambulance over here command post is a half a block down walkie-talkie frequency one i'll be at the command post that's the an overall command post is established where all personnel movement and relief personnel are coordinated beyond the command post is the outer perimeter designed to keep anyone not involved in the operation far away and out of danger okay folks come on let's back it up news reporters are channeled directly and only to a media liaison officer at the outer perimeter this reduces the spread of false rumors and keeps the press from penetrating the inner perimeter where television cameras too close to the scene can reveal police tactics you also avoid releasing the suspect's name and address to the press you of course want to minimize people other than police from calling the suspect the first responding officers are relieved as soon as it's safe and report directly to the command post for debriefing on the outside the tactical response usually stabilizes relatively quickly but on the inside that's only the beginning because somewhere near the inner perimeter another group of officers have another kind of job to try to talk the offender or offenders into releasing their hostages and themselves without further violence and we call that hostage negotiation standby 501 on subject we feel there's two suspects held up in there your own experience tells you that every situation is going to be different different locations different causes different endings two of the fellas one black one white one arm with a machine gun one on with a handgun as a result there are hundreds of ideas about how to handle negotiations certainly every negotiator is different but some procedures and principles are basically the same [Music] right from the start officers and detectives move in to gather intelligence on the offenders from all possible sources how are you fixed you got a good phone here got a good function okay george and all these guys put around through the door so we got to be very careful i gotta call here disturbance i spoke to the guy who lost the house on top of that negotiators want to know exactly where the suspects are i think his name is lambeth okay i hear a lot of ruckus up there sound like they're wrecking up the place up there get out of here license numbers of all vehicles in the area are checked out to help identify suspects on the right side of the house there is a chimney with electrical service entering to the side intelligence gathering includes a description of the exterior of the building and what can be seen of the interior conducting our view to the rear of the house but there seems to be a door leading into a patio which may be the only escape route you copy if you're observing a residence it's often possible to identify escape routes location of water and electrical service and if you're lucky a floor plan of the house this team is in position on the east side of the house we have two windows in clear view on the top floor counting from the top down the first window is just south of the chimney the second window is just south of that about 10 to 15 feet it appears to be open about four to five inches from the bottom and we see no action in the windows at this time 12 years old he's been kidnapped kidnapped by who man my husband my husband what's his name thomas thomas thomas chimes oh please he came in intelligence on suspects and hostages is also gathered from interviews with relatives friends neighbors witnesses and employers record checks and psychological and medical histories are also important resources for intelligence gathering and for considering negotiating options still there are many other questions you want to know the answers to in dealing with the hostage taker jerry basically we got a bank sticker with there telephones or other ways of communicating what hostages are involved who are they do any have medical problems uh what i'd like you to do is uh take this down take a bull horn and a walking talking down an early physical and clothing description of the suspect is also important because it later can become a description by someone else of the hostage suspects have been known to switch close with a hostage to test your willingness to hold fire and yet once the situation is stabilized the negotiator needs to establish immediate contact regardless of how much information has been acquired in this case he believes he can establish contact at the bottom of a staircase but out of the line of fire right on the phone you handle the dialogue from here if we can establish contact in this case they're starting the very first contact by phone here you have face-to-face communications sometimes unavoidable and often the most challenging and sometimes there's no easy way to establish communications here police had to wait until suspects allowed a hostage to come out and pick up a portable radio here a hostage bound hand and foot had to retrieve a telephone line in his teeth in this situation a man barricaded himself in a men's room with a hostage and refused to talk a detective's note passed under the door finally broke the suspect's silence if we do establish contact let's find out how many hostages we have the point is that the negotiator knows he must be persistent in establishing communications any way he can and just who is the negotiator in many cases it's an experienced first officer on the scene is that going to solve the problem a hostage situation may arise from virtually any call an officer encounters mr lambert mr lambert this is detective demarco some departments use detectives because of their experience interviewing a wide variety of personalities are you all right is there anybody up there with you larger departments may have trained negotiator teams usually with the rank of lieutenant or higher they study profiles of previous offenders they practice role-playing and self-defense they learn to use electronic monitoring and recording equipment but basically the negotiator is one with common sense a genuine concern for helping people in crisis and the ability to communicate this morning with that gun waving it madly and certainly there have been incidents when people other than police have been successful in negotiating you may want to talk to a close friend or legally separated and he was very abusive to me i didn't want him around here it's very bad influence on her and he knows it whether the negotiator will let that happen depends on the personalities involved and the history of their relationships you sure lori's all right the last thing the negotiator needs is someone whose presence would further upset the suspect let me talk to him okay let me see what i can do he can really get back to you i know how to handle him i'll tell you i will get back in there obviously your opening words of the negotiation are critical if you are face to face maintaining eye contact is also critical that's funny wrong you don't rush into conversation or start by asking what he wants this sets a bad precedent for your strategy later you respond to his opening statements language is an important consideration too you want to be close enough to be personal but not so close you crowd him you also want to stay near your radio behind cover and never with your back to the suspect sometimes a second officer can be a negotiator if negotiations break down or fatigue sets in a second negotiator should be available but out of contact with the suspect this prevents him from shopping for a better deal from another officer only one negotiator at a time [Music] whoever does become the negotiator had better become emotionally stable and function under psychological and physical pressure he has to be the kind of officer who doesn't flare up or get mad when things get unpleasant because chances are they will we gotta get out of here come on now the negotiator shouldn't become distracted from finding out who has emerged as the leader because this is the one you want to influence after studies of hundreds of hostage cases we know at first the suspect is usually extremely excited where's that phone who is it it's the police cops good his mind is going a mile a minute he's frustrated because he wants something he can't have escape i could blow them away any time i want any time you listen to that now it's seriously brag on and on about his power and threatened to do almost anything the negotiator of course listens don't [ __ ] me now just listen you listen cop the problem the problem is that slot wiper mine that's the problem this is what the hostage taker wants listening provides a chance to evaluate the person he's dealing with a chance to get a feel for the truth about the suspect's motivations demands and emotional stability never mind about my daughter i want my wife that's my daughter i got her you can't stop me the courthouse no one and the negotiator responds the same way you would not only listening to what the suspect says but also listening to voice quality for stress lying and kill and rationality get away with it let them go go let me out of here come on now i'd kill some of these people and if you've established telephone contact try to keep him on the line sometimes you won't always be able to how many how the suspect is evaluated is crucial to the negotiations simply because the negotiator's gut feeling combined with intelligence give him some idea about what might or might not work with the suspect i don't know what my name is just do something that's all you just listen that's all we ran the plate number of the abandoned car to the computer and it's a hertz rental it was rented in the name of robert burns he's also has an associate that he's done prior jobs with who i feel also fits the description of the other suspect these are two special agents from the fbi street dick and rodriguez and here are the surveillance followers from the bank oh great they look good that looks good for that guy [Applause] that looks good for his partner i think that's them we'll have to get these photographs out to the surveillance people to make sure that they have an idea what these guys look like listen we can't get a plane down here you know we can't get a plane landing in the middle of the street we've got overhead lines we've got traffic we've got the faa why don't you talk about something we can help you with that's not reasonable are you there this is don give me a call and get it down here first get us some your initial response to demands is a key factor in how the suspect sizes up your ability to deliver all right listen i gotta check with my boss on something like that i can't promise you a car to negotiate means to bargain in order to reach an agreement therefore the negotiator has to avoid extremes in replying to the suspect i'll see what i can do but there's no right the rejected demand is one extreme the other is to promise to deliver something outrageous the criminal expects you to con him so if you're obviously honoring his unreasonable demand he'll resent it and won't trust you the point is to find a middle road between the two extremes which shows you are reasonable this will gradually help encourage him to be reasonable as well that's all he is what about the personality you're dealing with if they were terrorists experience shows they take hostages with planning and for a specific political cause terrorist negotiations can be extremely complex and their demands can be unending as you can see here terrorist situations require more than just one officer to negotiate in some incidents robbers may speak the rhetoric of terrorists but only to camouflage their criminal intentions in a few cases police have negotiated a hostage situation inside a jail or in a prison here the suspect is already contained but often will bargain for the release of other inmates or for reform okay he said nobody's sick in there and now he wants some food if dealing with criminals caught in the act the negotiator knows that his best bet is to create an environment where suspects are given time to cool off yeah okay let's see if we can give them as much as you want in line of food because only then will they be able to realistically reassess their own situation hello hey don you decided what everyone wants to eat in there yeah we uh roast beef sandwiches how about roast beef sandwich that'd be all right okay how many of them you need uh eight eight i thought you said you had eight hostages well yeah eight hostages and it's uh two of us to us ten you introduce small tasks for the suspect to occupy himself with you want to put the burden on them for the welfare of hostages so you give them some choices to make the more the better okay i'll order it i'll let you know when it's ready listen don just take it easy you guys haven't killed anyone all you did was try to steal some money don't screw it up now just take it easy as you talk you let the suspect know you're listening carefully you also downplay what they've done so far as well it all depends on you what you do from here on in yeah but i've been doing my part so far what have you been doing you're not doing anything yet you're still getting the same thing a con job that's all khan job now there's no con job don i'm really trying to help you oh i'm sure you're trying to help but you're not doing anything the suspect senses are very acute at this time you avoid sudden physical movement because this would only heighten his excited state i want to see my wife i want to hear i want to see what she's done to me i want the whole world to see this what's that going to solve it's going to come along for me i want it here now damn it get her over here all right give me a minute let me call my headquarters do it i understand it's going to take a little bit of time give me some time okay and if the situation may go into the night you make the suspect's awareness of twilight as gradual and non-threatening as possible by the use of auxiliary lights you try to [ __ ] me again you have no intention of letting us out of here experience shows as long as a criminal believes he has a chance to escape by taking hostages he sees himself in control usually the hostages will not be harmed even though he's excited that's what we've been doing we've been talking about it the negotiator never tells the suspect that some type of compromise is impossible if he did the suspect may feel he has no choice but to go through with his threats and if he's excited enough he just may do it and that's why even though at first there's a show of force to contain him it's probably not a good idea to keep crowding him unfortunately when hostage situations occur without a department policy every officer within a hundred miles wants to get into the act if a criminal takes a hostage for escape someone who's reacting to unbearable stress often takes a hostage for what he's getting right now a lot of attention for example this man's father died of cancer he was so disturbed and hurt he took a hostage to tell the whole world to stop smoking this guy was so frustrated he took a hostage to demand one hundred thousand jobs for the poor in either case there was of course a better way but the point is that at that moment the offender didn't see one even while standing on top of a fuel tank there are a lot of theories about this kind of hostage taker but studies of the offenders themselves have shown they have some things in common after years of failure confusion and fear a truly disturbed person often sees only the need to take some kind of drastic action to stop the hurt in his own mind this is the only way to prove to himself and those close to him that he should be taken seriously one technique to use with this type of personality is to interrupt his train of thought ask him something different from the subject at hand this makes him stop and think all right look you're getting excited again do me a favor it's hot how about turning off the car i'm not turning off the car come on turn off the car you're wasting gas uh that's the first right thing you said today that i'm wasting gas okay in an odd way the presence of a crowd in the police at bay proves him right he's getting attention it feels good makes him bold just try and calm yourself a little bit every time a sense of power that is rare in his life but because he is basically maladjusted he doesn't know how to get out of his mess gracefully without losing what he was trying to prove in the first place he may try to manipulate circumstances to his advantage with lies or rhetoric crowds are kept back and out of sight as soon as possible to reduce his need to stand tough before an audience whether the suspect deserves it or not the negotiator gives him what he wants attention his dignity and a way out she's got to see what she's doing okay all right we're making an effort to contact us it's going to take some time good luck you're not going to get her she's hiding you're not going to get her you know i'm getting kind of looking at you in a damn car get out of here and your uniform is driving me crazy does my uniform offend you mr china yes it defends me yes it does would it make you more comfortable if i took my shirt off yeah all right i'm wearing a white shirt just like you are under your shirt yeah the suspect also wants you to relate on his own level and sometimes that means making minor adjustments as long as they don't make you vulnerable you