In the novel I’m working on, the bad guys infiltrate a huge hospital to kidnap a patient. Then they shoot their way out. This raises a few questions, and I don’t have the guts to call the local hospital and ask:
Do large hospitals have their own security forces? If so, are they armed?
If a delusional mental patient saw the crime and cogently described it, would an average police officer take this seriously? Or would they wait for a sane witness before starting an investigation?
I need to bring the FBI into this, but I don’t know if hospital raids fall under their jurisdiction. What would have to happen to get them involved?
Yes, and maybe. Most of the hospitals in the Denver area have security through Hospital Shared Services. These security guards used to be armed, but aren’t anymore. For a while, the University of Colorado Hospital was patrolled by University Police, who were definitely armed. Denver Health Medical Center has Denver Police officers in the ER.
If you want armed cops/security in your story, a university hospital with armed campus police would probably be the easiest way to go, if that works with everything else.
Large hospitals typically do have their own security forces. They are not huge security forces. In the ones I have worked for, these guys were not armed with guns, but they had nightsticks and pepper spray. But their most common duty was telling people “You can’t park there.” Off-duty cops, who were armed, staffed certain areas (the emergency room) that stayed accessible all night. In the case of a known situation, such as a celebrity being admitted, or victims of a gang shooting, additional cops from the local force were also present.
Having said that, shooting their way out would be the worst possible way to do it from the POV of the bad guys. This would have law enforcement hot on their trail instantly, before they could get very far, and would pretty much assure a large contingent. (From a plot perspective.)
They would probably take it as seriously as that of any other witness. Witnesses are notoriously unreliable, even the sane ones. They would likely look for all possible witnesses to get a full picture.
That would probably depend on the patient kidnaped. If the patient was kidnapped and taken out of state I think that would do it. The FBI used to have some information on their website about what they would get involved in, although I’m pretty sure it didn’t cover everything they might get involved in.
As a mystery writer, I talked a lot to people I had worked with in the hospital. I also called up the local police. I had a couple of lengthy interviews, for instance, with the people who did hostage rescues, but before they talked to me they wanted a lot of information. It probably helped that I had copies of my previous books to give them (thus indicating, if not proving, that I wasn’t just some weirdo trying to get information that would help me commit a crime). So this could be a bit harder if you’re not published, but I would suggest asking anyway. They can only say no. (I mean the hospital and the local police. The FBI will probably not help.)
Something you might want to do, for background, is visit your local academic bookstore and invest in a couple of study aids for law students. The “Crunchtime” series is economical and gives you the down & dirty on the law. I’d start with Criminal Procedure and Evidence. Police wouldn’t necessarily know all or even most of what’s in those books, but its good to have some factual background, because they definitely know more than you know now.
Most good-sized hospitals will have a small contingent of armed guards [who may or may not be off-duty or former cops around here] and a small contingent of unarmed guards.
A determined and professional team of criminals would have little trouble shooting his way out of a mid-sized hospital. While you might encounter armed resistance from a handful of men, likely you’d encounter it one officer at a time and you’d have the advantage of time to plan. You could also make it out of most buildings before all of the guards could actually be mustered, so you’re not going to have to worry about all of them. It’s possible you’d run into the Columbine effect where the guards run the other way, especially if they’ve got multiple shooters.
You’d want to make sure you could get out of the facility before the cops showed up, which is probably the larger concern.
Of course, in my town, where the cops can take 45 minutes to show up to a ‘husband just stabbed wife’ call…
I worked on a secure floor in a large hospital. There were unarmed security guards at the front doors and another unarmed security guard when you stepped off the elevators on my floor. Visitors are issued a pass. There’s an unguarded but keyed set of elevators for staff and all doors except the guarded elevators are alarmed. There are cameras facing the elevators and atop the buildings that record 24/7 all exits and parking areas. Armed security are upstairs monitoring the cameras. There are also armed deputies guarding prisoner patients at least 2 days a week on any given floor, as we do no peds.
RNs carry cell phones and there are 8 key coded locked doors on the floor—med rooms, dirty rooms and such. If there is trouble, staff could lock themselves in and call 911.