called to a barricade situation. There was a party, couple of guys draw guns, they start shooting at each other, one guy runs out, he runs into somebody else’s apartment where a lady lives, locks the door and holds her hostage.
So now the police get called and he starts shooting at them out of the window. A couple of our SWAT guys got called and they get there and he’s still shooting at the police. So they call everybody; they call the whole SWAT team. We start heading tothe south side and set up on this thing. It lasted thirty hours. We spent the whole night there – all of Thanksgiving – everybody on our team. We froze our asses off because we were outside. The negotiators tried to negotiate with him for hours. They were talking for like, twenty hours, trying to convince the guy to let her go. We tried to figure out that maybe, if he falls asleep, maybe we could do an entry, but he’s talking to the negotiators and they seem like they’re getting somewhere, like he might give her up. So they keep negotiating; they don’t allow us to go in.
After like, thirty hours, we set up a plan to make an entry in case we hear gunshots or he says something like, ‘I’m gonna kill her right now.’ We make a plan to use distraction devices and hit both the front door and the back door and break the windows trying to get in. But just then we hear a little ‘pop’.
The guys are like, ‘Did you hear that?’
It might have sounded like a gunshot.
So they try to communicate with the guy. No sound, nothing. No response. So we’re ordered to make our entry. We tried to make an entry but it took probably forty-five seconds to get in there. He had already killed her and killed himself. So there were at least two shots. We thought we heard one of them, the other one we didn’t even hear - it might have been muffled.
It’s hard to say, could you have done something? Maybe you should have gone in there sooner? Then you start second guessing your bosses. Should you go in, instead of negotiating? But there are certain ways things have to go and as long as they feel that they’re open to negotiations, they’ll try to negotiate ratherthan try to go in there, assault the building and try to save the hostage.
Well, here’s the thing – and at that time and at this point in time, it’s still the same – we don’t have the benefit of explosive breaching. Our department, it’s good, it’s a big department, a lot of good things about it, but being progressive? We’re not as progressive as let’s say, the West Coast departments or some of the Southern departments in our country but especially the West Coast. The West Coast is very progressive. But this is the Midwest and because of the political atmosphere they never allowed our department to train, obtain and use explosive breaching. But a lot of it had to do with maybe getting lucky with certain situations or maybe not running into that type of situation where you absolutely needed explosive breaching.
I think that job – where the girl died who was a totally innocent victim – I think if we were to have had explosive breaching at that point, we could have set them up on both doors, we could have set them up against the walls in the bedroom that they were in – and you know, they do it all over the place – and as soon as it detonates you put a gun in there; within three or four seconds you have a gun in that room.
But we just forced our way in mechanically – ram, sledgehammer – then basically pushed our way in. He had a hallway and he had a door in this hallway and what he did was, he lodged a chair right in there and it fit perfectly. He had so much time that he stacked it up to the ceiling with furniture. That was one door. The other door, he put a refrigerator and stove and a couple ofother pieces of furniture against it. So literally, once we beached the lock mechanically, we just had to push our way in; push these refrigerators, stove, cabinet and chairs
So now the police get called and he starts shooting at them out of the window. A couple of our SWAT guys got called and they get there and he’s still shooting at the police. So they call everybody; they call the whole SWAT team. We start heading tothe south side and set up on this thing. It lasted thirty hours. We spent the whole night there – all of Thanksgiving – everybody on our team. We froze our asses off because we were outside. The negotiators tried to negotiate with him for hours. They were talking for like, twenty hours, trying to convince the guy to let her go. We tried to figure out that maybe, if he falls asleep, maybe we could do an entry, but he’s talking to the negotiators and they seem like they’re getting somewhere, like he might give her up. So they keep negotiating; they don’t allow us to go in.
After like, thirty hours, we set up a plan to make an entry in case we hear gunshots or he says something like, ‘I’m gonna kill her right now.’ We make a plan to use distraction devices and hit both the front door and the back door and break the windows trying to get in. But just then we hear a little ‘pop’.
The guys are like, ‘Did you hear that?’
It might have sounded like a gunshot.
So they try to communicate with the guy. No sound, nothing. No response. So we’re ordered to make our entry. We tried to make an entry but it took probably forty-five seconds to get in there. He had already killed her and killed himself. So there were at least two shots. We thought we heard one of them, the other one we didn’t even hear - it might have been muffled.
It’s hard to say, could you have done something? Maybe you should have gone in there sooner? Then you start second guessing your bosses. Should you go in, instead of negotiating? But there are certain ways things have to go and as long as they feel that they’re open to negotiations, they’ll try to negotiate ratherthan try to go in there, assault the building and try to save the hostage.
Well, here’s the thing – and at that time and at this point in time, it’s still the same – we don’t have the benefit of explosive breaching. Our department, it’s good, it’s a big department, a lot of good things about it, but being progressive? We’re not as progressive as let’s say, the West Coast departments or some of the Southern departments in our country but especially the West Coast. The West Coast is very progressive. But this is the Midwest and because of the political atmosphere they never allowed our department to train, obtain and use explosive breaching. But a lot of it had to do with maybe getting lucky with certain situations or maybe not running into that type of situation where you absolutely needed explosive breaching.
I think that job – where the girl died who was a totally innocent victim – I think if we were to have had explosive breaching at that point, we could have set them up on both doors, we could have set them up against the walls in the bedroom that they were in – and you know, they do it all over the place – and as soon as it detonates you put a gun in there; within three or four seconds you have a gun in that room.
But we just forced our way in mechanically – ram, sledgehammer – then basically pushed our way in. He had a hallway and he had a door in this hallway and what he did was, he lodged a chair right in there and it fit perfectly. He had so much time that he stacked it up to the ceiling with furniture. That was one door. The other door, he put a refrigerator and stove and a couple ofother pieces of furniture against it. So literally, once we beached the lock mechanically, we just had to push our way in; push these refrigerators, stove, cabinet and chairs
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