Hostage Negotiation

Hostage negotiators have one of the most difficult jobs in the world, cutting a deal with someone whom one doesn't know and with the strongest possibility with that s/he is going to do whatever they say. Negotiators deal with criminals who 95% of the time who know what they are doing. Dealing with such people one would have go through extensive training. Negotiators are quick-witted people who know when to say what and what to do when a situation arises.

Sometime back we had a Hostage situation. Three men armed with automatic rifles and explosives held the staff of my bank and 15 clients as hostage's in the main banking hall. As the assigned negotiator I was in contact with the hostage captors via my mobile phone, but unfortunately I was unable to see them or the hostages.

The captors demanded 2 million dollars in cash (An amount which was available in the bank vault), safe passage and no police interference. They threatened to kill the hostages if their demands were not met.

To deal with the whole situation I used the techniques that were taught to me, these techniques were both useful and if applied at the right time can achieve results that would be life saving, which would bring the death toll down to a bear minimum. Nevertheless it is the dream of every negotiator to get all the hostages alive and well. The techniques that I used were not certainly the best but they were the ones that I was taught to put in to use. I learned these techniques from various places. One of them happened to be the Police Academy where I had served them for almost a year as a negotiator.

The techniques were simple and easy to follow. One of the major techniques was to remain calm at all times even if the worst was expected to arise. Any hasty decision could prove to be disastrous

Rogan & Hammer (1995) discuss the four stage model used by the Michigan State Police as:

1. Introduction and establishing contact,

2. relationship building,

3. problem negotiation, and

4. resolution

In the first step negotiators should try and establish a contact in my case I had to find out who they were what they wanted. They told me first of all that they wanted to speak to no one but me. From the voice I had deciphered that he was not an American national but was from a Middle Eastern country. He had a slight Arabic accent to his voice; his voice was gruff and heavy and meant every word. He told me that they wanted the money that was in the vault and a safe passage out of the country, and if the demands were not met he would kill the hostages one by one and it would all be my fault. This information that I had got was very crucial as this gave us the idea of whom we were dealing with. This further told the police that the task would not be simple and most probably they were on a do or die mission.

The second stage and the third stage go hand in hand; if you build a good relationship then the negotiation stage would become easier to conduct. I had convinced them that the process would need some time to accomplish and that they could be rest assured that all the demands would be met. The only condition that I had asserted here was the safety of my people. The reason that this is done is that if one doesn't build that relationship you only end up frustrating them even more and in the advent of this one of the hostages that you are trying to free could die.

In the third stage I had to make a negotiation with the captors. This meant that I had to please or meet some of their demands. The security of the banks vault is that when the panic button is pushed the bank vault automatically closes. There are two codes that will open the bank vault; one of them lies with the chief of the police department and the other one lies with me. Also, the codes are never written and have to me memorized by me. I had decided to give the codes they could take the money but as long as the captors were in the bank the money was partly safe.

After analyzing the situation we came to the conclusion that we would give the codes to open the bank vault that would make them happy and an exchange of prisoners could also be made. After having agreed on that I made a call to the captors and told them that the codes will be given if some of the hostages were freed. The deal was made and they assured me as soon as the vault was opened they would free five hostages.

After a good fifteen minutes the bank doors were opened and five of my bank people came out running. They were scared, and praying to the good lord that they were safe and sound.

was happy that five of my people were safe but the ordeal was far from over, I still had ten more people who were stuck inside and the possibility of seeing a happy ending to all this was far from being true. However, the fact that they had freed five people gave me signs