Stalling for Time by Gary Noesner Read Free Book Online Page A

a committee to explore ways to respond to crises in a more organized and effective fashion. The committee’s conclusions led the NYPD to create a full-time unit—the Emergency Services Unit—that would be responsible for responding to crisis events. No longer would the response to and management of the incident be left in the hands of whoever showed up first. They also established protocols emphasizing proper containment of the situation as well as nonviolent approaches, in contrast to what had previously taken place.
    In January 1973, the Emergency Services Unit had its first opportunity to apply this new, more restrained approach when officers responded to a robbery in progress at John and Al’s Sporting Goods Store in Brooklyn. A group of perpetrators held nine hostages, and an immediate exchange of gunfire resulted in the death of one officer and the wounding of two others. Nonetheless, forty-seven hours later, the situation was resolved with all hostages released and all four perpetrators in custody.
    A post-incident review concluded that restraint had succeeded far better than earlier, more aggressive approaches. One flaw that the review commented on was that communication with the subjects inside had been uncontrolled and uncoordinated. This prompted NYPD Lt.Frank Bolz and Officer Harvey Schlossberg, a trained psychologist, to be assigned to build the nation’s first dedicated hostage negotiation team, selecting and training a group of officers specifically for this purpose.
    In 1974, the FBI recognized that the NYPD was on to something, and developed its own formal hostage-negotiation training program at its Quantico training academy. This course was designed for use by FBI agents as well as police officers. Those who volunteered for negotiation training, selected from each of the FBI field offices around the country, tended to be mature and experienced agents, known in their offices as solid, effective, and successful. Many had shown a knack for developing informants or gaining confessions from otherwise uncooperative criminals. The negotiation skills they learned during the course further enhanced their ability to communicate with citizens on the street and avoid verbal confrontations.
    After training, these agents would then work with FBI SWAT teams in regional field offices around the country to help resolve hostage and barricade situations. Then as now, FBI agents were assigned to a SWAT team or field negotiation unit on a part-time basis only. An agent might spend most of his time hunting down mobsters and get called in every now and again when a siege occurred. The original concept developed by NYPD and adopted by the FBI focused primarily on bargaining skills, among them reciprocity; negotiators would in essence say, “If you cooperate with me and do this, I’ll cooperate with you and do that.” This gave rise to the principle we saw applied early on in Sperryville: never give a hostage taker anything unless he gives you something in return.
    During my initial training to become an FBI agent, I had made a mental note to try to become involved in this new specialty at the earliest opportunity. In 1978 I mentioned this interest to my partner Ken Schiffer, a very experienced senior agent who knew the WFO training coordinator, the person who decided who got to attend the negotiation training program at Quantico. With Ken’s support, two years later, in 1980, I was given the opportunity to attend the FBI two-week negotiation course. During the course I learned the mechanics of the negotiation process, studied abnormal psychology, heard case studies, andparticipated in role-playing exercises. I was deeply impressed by the power of the simple communication techniques being taught. I was also impressed by the insight of the man teaching these new skills, Agent Fred Lanceley. Fred’s great skill was his ability to break down incidents into their component parts and glean the dos and don’ts. He also had a