The bank robbery I planned so carefully has gone horribly wrong. So here I am, stuck in the bank with about 5 million police officers who have me surrounded. But at least my accomplices and I have our hostages. A guard, a branch manager, some women and children, one pregnant lady, a couple of elderly people, and some people that candidly I feel a little threatened by. There’s no way I’m going to let those guys make any trouble.
So here’re my questions:
When the hostage negotiator shows up, he’s going to try to convince me to release the hostages. In what order? In the movies, the bad guys always give up the women and children first, but it seems to me that the negotiator might want to secure the release of those hostages I’m most likely to shoot first, like the guard, the manager and the big guys. Or is the goal just to get as many people out as possible and it’s easier to appeal to my machismo and chivalry to get the “more sympathetic” hostages out first?
What I really want is for this whole thing to go away. Does it ever? Has the constabulary ever said, “We’ll give you a pass on the charges if you let everyone out now?”
More broadly, what are the goals and priorities of a professional hostage negotiator (subject of course to the fact that each situation is different)? What power does he have to offer things of value to the hostage taker?
As an aside, has anyone seen a recent case where someone got away after holding hostages? To me it seems that it always ends in either the guy (and possibly the hostages) shot dead, or eventually he gives up/is captured.
>When the hostage negotiator shows up, he’s going to try to >convince me to release the hostages. In what order? In >the movies, the bad guys always give up the women and >children first, but it seems to me that the negotiator >might want to secure the release of those hostages I’m >most likely to shoot first, like the guard, the manager >and the big guys. Or is the goal just to get as many >people out as possible and it’s easier to appeal to my >machismo and chivalry to get the “more sympathetic” >hostages out first?
He (or she if you are a female) will try to get you to let the innocent victims go first. Children, bank customers, females…because these are the people you are most likely to release. But the overall goal is to get you to release ALL the hostages. The Gurad and the manager are going to be last because you associate them with the bank and you have already pulled a gun on ‘the bank’.
>What I really want is for this whole thing to go away. >Does it ever? Has the constabulary ever said, “We’ll give >you a pass on the charges if you let everyone out now?”
No. You are screwed. You are going to get a mandatory 25 years in federal prison. The police don’thave the discretion to call it off once you start it. The jury makes that call.
More broadly, what are the goals and priorities of a professional hostage negotiator (subject of course to the fact that each situation is different)? What power does he have to offer things of value to the hostage taker? **
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(1) Establish trust (or at least a rapport) with the hostage taker. Negotiation eill go on until you pass out from lack of food if necessary as long as you don’t start shooting hostages. He can offer you food, talks with your wife, family, minister, the news media, and the like. He can promist that no one will hurt you if you surrender peacefully. He can promise you medical care if you need it.
If you hurt a hostage, the rules change. The negotiator may then accede to your demands for a getaway vehicle. As soon as you make yourself visible however, you will be shot in a specific way so as to prevent any reflex action by you pulling the trigger on the hostage you are no doubt holding a gun to.
Personally, if I were the negotiator, I would go for the ‘innocents’ first: the pregnant woman, the children, the elderly. These are customers, whose only asset to you might be emotional - the cops might be less likely to engage in a little gunplay if you’ve got women and children about. Chances are, it would be very difficult to procure the release of the ‘big guys’, since they have info about the bank you might need, and might be influential enough to convince the authorities to meet a demand or two (provided you let them live, of course). You would therefore be less likely to let those folks go. As a negotiator, I’d certainly want to get as many people out as possible before S.W.A.T. gets involved.
I’d say, not a chance. Especially if you start shooting people. As for the police letting you go, as Padeye says, it’s not their call.
About all you can really hope for, once it gets to this point, is to walk out alive.
Granted, I know practically nothing about what I am saying here
However, from a common-sense perspective, there should be two goals: 1) the release of the hostages, with as little damage done to them as possible (i.e., not in a body bag), and 2) the capture of the hostage-taker.
A good negotiator, in my opinion, is one who can get everyone out alive.
As for ‘oferring things of value,’ I don’t think that’s what negotiators do. They may, at best, agree to meet one or more of the hostage taker’s demands (for the release of one or more hostages, of course), but I don’t think they would (or should) actually make offers.
As an aside, I did a net search using ‘hostage negotiation rules priorities’ as keywords, and came up with a few sites. Unfortunately, it seems that all of the actual useful information in all of these sites appears to be kept in passworded ‘members’ areas! I guess we’re not supposed to know what real negotiators do.
Well…mostly. I was …erm… giving independent confirmation of what you said. Yeah! That’s what I was doing. So it must make it (what you said, and what I later said, that is) correct, right? ‘Great minds’ and all that…
A friend in the business tells me that they will try to get the women and children out first, in the hopes that the big strong guys might get a chance to overpower you, and do so.
And the stunt in the Bill Murray movie might not have worked: within just a few minutes the police would have ID’d the phone number and would have found that it belonged to a cell phone, and (with the proper equipment) all cellphones are easily trackable anytime they are being used. A few more minutes and the cops would have brought their tracking equipment, to do just that. Normal cellphones only transmit a signal when they are in use, but as a security feature some specialty types of cellphones can be tracked even when they aren’t being used.
-If you’re runnin’ from the man, cellphones are bad. - MC
Now on to my post. (Most of this is from the negotiator’s point of view.)
I think the negotiator would get out the “innocents” first, and would almost “encourage” the bank personnel (manager, tellers, etc.) to stay in because they can work things such as the safes, the registers, and also have knowledge of things such as dye packs, alarms, and more. The big guys (I assume you mean large and muscular) would also be good to keep in the building because they could a) overpower the hostage taker, given the chance, b) cause the hostage taker to be nervous, resulting in him/her making a mistake, and c) could probably go longest without food and sleep.
The hostage taker will likely do one of two things. 1) Release most of the hostages so that only a controllable number of people remain. 2) Release no hostages so as to have the “upper hand”. If a lot of hostages remain, the talks are likely to go on longer. The hostage taker might make the mistake of demanding something like food or water. This is an easy opportunity for mistakes to happen (for both sides, eg: the Orlando situation from last Sunday).
The theory I think might work best (assuming there are sharpshooters around, and there usually are) is to do the following (DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE IF ANYONE FOLLOWS THROUGH WITH THIS PLAN):
Scenario: You robbed the bank, but the cops showed up early and you’re trapped inside with some hostages. You are armed with at least two firearms. The police are likely to use “flash bangs” or shoot you if you get near the windows. Assuming the police don’t know who you are (who is robbing the bank), you take a ski mask and put it on one of the hostages (preferably a male). Remove the ammunition from one of the guns and hand it to the masked person, while still maintaining the armed weapon. The masked hostage will walk out with you and a few others, with the unarmed gun to one of the other hostages heads while you keep your hand near your armed gun. The sharpshooters are likely to kill the masked hostage, and in the confusion the real hostage taker can escape. If there are extra ski masks, they can be put on hostages still in the building who are told to stay in the building. This gives you, the real thief, time to escape.
Hey, I really like that last scenario with the extra ski masks on the hostages. That’s one I haven’t seen in the movies.
Not that this makes me ANY kind of an expert, but in business school, for our negotiations class, our project was… hostage negotiations. From what we gleaned in the literature, what has been said is correct. You want to sympathize with the gunman and remove the us/them flavor of the situation and appear to be independent acting in everyone’s best interest “I just don’t want to see anyone hurt…neither you, nor hostages, nor police officers”. Certainly the ‘innocents’ would be leveraged, but their release would be framed as being beneficial to the hostage taker not just for collateral in the negotiation, but also for the hostage taker’s own plans. Women, children, and the elderly will be made out to be ‘high-maintenance’ hostages that perhaps cannot move quickly, require more bathroom visits, are more emotional, etc. The idea is to make the hostage taker feel like he is still in control and letting those people go was a good thing regardless because he can more easily control a smaller group of hostages, etc.
Sounds stupid, but the negotiator has nothing to lose by trying to gain the gunman’s trust and give ‘pointers’ to him about how so much of the tension would be relieved if only he had to work with a smaller number of hostages. Naturally, things will get dragged out, relatives of the gunman will try to convince him to give up, jail time will be made out to be a cakewalk with all kinds of vague promises of leniency and forgiveness. And presumably after too little sleep, food, and creature comforts, you’ll crack.
Of course, this is when it’s a bank holdup on ‘neutral ground’. The dragging out gets quite painful for the police or others when the situation is on home turf like Ruby Ridge or Waco where the gunman already has many creature comforts and is pre-prepared for ‘hostiles’ or ‘black helicopters’ or whatever. That’s when you really see things get ugly.
I’m curious to know if anyone has ever got away from such a situation in recent times, but I haven’t found anything specific.
Here is an interesting conversation among correctional officers discussing a hypothetical prison break involving hostages. They seem to be of two minds: yes, let the guy go and catch him later, and no, don’t ever let an inmate out with a hostage.
I seem to recall that the Israelis officially consider a hostage as “dead”, and therefore don’t feel opposed to attempting audacious rescue attempts, such as Entebbe.
This Canadian decision alludes to “a successful helicopter escape,” but I’ve not yet found the details.
This page makes reference to a “morning glory” attack, in which high-ranking bank officers are taken hostage. I’d like to learn more about this.
It won’t work. EVERYONE who comes out of the building is treated as a suspect and disarmed. And everyone is brought out one at a time to prevent something like this from happening. AND, there are additional safeguards in place to prevent the police sniper from shooting a hostage.
Correctional officers are not involved in hostage situations outside of correctional facilities.
