learned and applied to most negotiation situations.
The new training slides provided specific guidance, for example, on recognizing a “suicide by cop” situation, in which the subject purposefully engages with the police to bring about his own demise. It also contained a list of indications of progress and a similar list to help identify incidents that were becoming more dangerous. Specific active listening skills were provided, with examples of how they could be incorporated into dialogue to create a relationship of trust with an individual in crisis. The response to these new training materials was enthusiastic and overwhelmingly positive. The number of field-training requests quadrupled; more and more police began to look to the FBI for guidance in this area.
On one Fourth of July, I was sitting on a blanket on the Washington Mall, having a picnic with my family and looking forward to the start of the fireworks show, when my beeper sounded. I pulled out my cell phone, punched in the number on the display, and soon reached Mike Duke, an FBI negotiator assigned to South Carolina. He was calling to tell me that a gunman had taken over the USS
Yorktown
, a decommissioned Navy aircraft carrier and museum in Charleston. According to the best information Mike had, the subject was a Vietnam vet with emotional problems. He had taken a high-powered rifle on board the ship and fired off some rounds, but he was not believed to be holding any hostages.
It does not take Sigmund Freud to connect the dots that might link asymbolic U.S. Navy ship, the Fourth of July, and a Vietnam veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I told Mike that this was probably a classic crisis intervention situation where the gunman had no clear substantive demands, and advised him to suggest to the police our standard approach of establishing rapport with active listening skills and talking this man through his crisis. I then asked him to call me again once he arrived at the command post and had gathered additional information. He said he would, and I returned to my family picnic.
About an hour later my beeper went off again, but this time it displayed a different number. When I dialed the number, my call was answered by a voice I didn’t recognize. I asked to speak with Mike Duke, but the man on the phone said he didn’t know a Mike Duke. I then asked if this was the command post; the man said it was not. I next asked if this was the negotiation team room, and again the man said no. Then he asked me who I was. I told him my name and said that I was a negotiator with the FBI, calling from Washington, D.C. In response, he said, “I guess I’m in bigger trouble than I thought.”
Dumbfounded, I asked: “Are you by any chance the man with the gun?”
“Yes, I am,” he said.
I learned later that the phone number Mike had sent me was for the souvenir shop where the command post and negotiation team had been set up. What Mike didn’t know was that this same number also rang on the ship’s bridge, where the gunman was.
Now that I had been thrust into the dialogue, I didn’t want to just hang up on him. I needed to do what I could to keep him calm, then extricate myself as diplomatically as possible.
“What’s your name?” I asked him.
“Jim.”
“You okay, Jim?”
“I’m okay.”
“Well, you know that no one wishes you harm. We all want you to come off that ship safe and sound, with nobody getting hurt, either.”
I didn’t want to cross wires with the local police’s strategy, but with this basic civility I thought I was on pretty safe ground.
“What happened today, Jim?”
He responded, “I’m a Vietnam vet and I’m not getting the help Ineed. I served my country, but nobody cares about me or wants to hire me. I’ve got nothing to look forward to.”
He projected hopelessness and helplessness, the most important suicide warning signs. He seemed to be saying that life wasn’t worth living, and I was
The new training slides provided specific guidance, for example, on recognizing a “suicide by cop” situation, in which the subject purposefully engages with the police to bring about his own demise. It also contained a list of indications of progress and a similar list to help identify incidents that were becoming more dangerous. Specific active listening skills were provided, with examples of how they could be incorporated into dialogue to create a relationship of trust with an individual in crisis. The response to these new training materials was enthusiastic and overwhelmingly positive. The number of field-training requests quadrupled; more and more police began to look to the FBI for guidance in this area.
On one Fourth of July, I was sitting on a blanket on the Washington Mall, having a picnic with my family and looking forward to the start of the fireworks show, when my beeper sounded. I pulled out my cell phone, punched in the number on the display, and soon reached Mike Duke, an FBI negotiator assigned to South Carolina. He was calling to tell me that a gunman had taken over the USS
Yorktown
, a decommissioned Navy aircraft carrier and museum in Charleston. According to the best information Mike had, the subject was a Vietnam vet with emotional problems. He had taken a high-powered rifle on board the ship and fired off some rounds, but he was not believed to be holding any hostages.
It does not take Sigmund Freud to connect the dots that might link asymbolic U.S. Navy ship, the Fourth of July, and a Vietnam veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I told Mike that this was probably a classic crisis intervention situation where the gunman had no clear substantive demands, and advised him to suggest to the police our standard approach of establishing rapport with active listening skills and talking this man through his crisis. I then asked him to call me again once he arrived at the command post and had gathered additional information. He said he would, and I returned to my family picnic.
About an hour later my beeper went off again, but this time it displayed a different number. When I dialed the number, my call was answered by a voice I didn’t recognize. I asked to speak with Mike Duke, but the man on the phone said he didn’t know a Mike Duke. I then asked if this was the command post; the man said it was not. I next asked if this was the negotiation team room, and again the man said no. Then he asked me who I was. I told him my name and said that I was a negotiator with the FBI, calling from Washington, D.C. In response, he said, “I guess I’m in bigger trouble than I thought.”
Dumbfounded, I asked: “Are you by any chance the man with the gun?”
“Yes, I am,” he said.
I learned later that the phone number Mike had sent me was for the souvenir shop where the command post and negotiation team had been set up. What Mike didn’t know was that this same number also rang on the ship’s bridge, where the gunman was.
Now that I had been thrust into the dialogue, I didn’t want to just hang up on him. I needed to do what I could to keep him calm, then extricate myself as diplomatically as possible.
“What’s your name?” I asked him.
“Jim.”
“You okay, Jim?”
“I’m okay.”
“Well, you know that no one wishes you harm. We all want you to come off that ship safe and sound, with nobody getting hurt, either.”
I didn’t want to cross wires with the local police’s strategy, but with this basic civility I thought I was on pretty safe ground.
“What happened today, Jim?”
He responded, “I’m a Vietnam vet and I’m not getting the help Ineed. I served my country, but nobody cares about me or wants to hire me. I’ve got nothing to look forward to.”
He projected hopelessness and helplessness, the most important suicide warning signs. He seemed to be saying that life wasn’t worth living, and I was
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