This is the third of a series of stories about the Sheriff’s Citizens Academy at Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office. The academy is for citizens interested in learning more about the sheriff’s office. The academy is free and lasts 16 weeks. For more information, contact Deputy Greg Dotson at 904-3033.
Sheriff’s negotiators responded to a call of a troubled man with a knife who barricaded himself in his home.
Negotiators normally don’t call on family members to help in crisis situations because they may inadvertently escalate the emotions, said Lt. Joe Gray who heads the sheriff’s Crisis Negotiations Team.
But in this instance, negotiators tried unsuccessfully to convince the man to drop the knife and come outside. His mother assured negotiators her son would listen to her.
“Bubba, you need to come out,” the mother said.
Gray said the son immediately dropped the knife and walked out.
“That still amazes me,” Gray said.
Gray discussed the role of the Negotiations Team to the Sheriff’s Citizens’ Academy members.
Gray commands the overall 11-deputy team with Lt. Rhett Rankin and Sgt. Derek Oeser each heading five-deputy teams. Team members must complete a 40-hour basic hostage negotiations course and undergo regular training.
Team members must listen well, maintain good physical and mental health, handle emotions, work as a team and able to talk well. Skills include active listening, problem-solving, intelligence gathering, suicide intervention, note-talking and knowledge of equipment.
Most of the common responses involve barricaded suspects and people threatening their own lives.
“It’s very highly emotional,” Gray said. “Our job is to break emotions to where they’re (the subject) rational. We judge our success if it ends positively.”
While hostage calls are rare, Gray told members if they are a hostage, they should stay calm, take mental notes and humanize themselves to the hostage-taker. Follow the orders of the SWAT officer.
Oeser described in detail one situation where the team responded to a barricaded husband in a domestic situation. Responders established an Incident Command center, obtained information from his wife and searched for a hook to convince him to listen to the negotiators.
“The hook was his brother,” Oeser said.
After several hours of negotiations, the man surrendered.
The team reviewed the response later in a critical fashion.
“Correcting our mistakes makes us better,” Oeser noted. |
Email
Print
Facebook
StumbleUpon
Google
Yahoo!