shoot the hostage was my first thought at reading the thread topic.
This seems to assume the hostage taker is an idiot, suicidal, or both. Are there any plans you know of that don’t rely on those things?
A hostage-taker is having to deal with a lot of different things at once (like, “Oh, shit, how did I get here, and what the fuck am I going to do now?”), and so will not be thinking nearly as clearly as the team of negotiators, crisis management specialists, and special tactics officers. If a talk-down isn’t happening, then the job of the negotiator is to open up some tactical advantage or identify a point of entry for the SWAT guys.
And no, most hostage-takers are not candidates for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Most are more akin to John Wojtowicz (portrayed by Al Pacino in the fictionalized Dog Day Afternoon) than the clever heist team in Inside Man.
Stranger
(bolding mine)
:eek:
You have got to get a better hobby!!
(interesting thread, BTW, and I hope I never have to learn more about the subject than I read here).