If you have issues viewing or accessing this file contact us at NCJRS.gov. r :, .. -. .. - . "EA1AN BECOMES HOSTAGE - Jolie/ Police Cap/. Charles aches gllllll/all police /a/el' idell/(tiecf as Aaroll Pill ks/o II. 24. v/rs. MOllica Goldell ill Jolie/ Wedllesday. Police /mpped cI~)' CI//l'lIIpled to roh a jell'efrr s/orl'. and Mrs. Golde II. a ostage. lvI,'S. Golden and Cap/. Halllilton well' held hoslage \'t' which ended with Pinkstoll beillg shol sel'eml lilll!'s. tvlrs. './CJOI. Hall/if tOil \l'as 110/ illjllll'd. \ INDEX BACKGROUND: the history 0; the use of Hostages ........................................ Part 1. The Hostage Pawn in a Deadly Game ................................. 3 Part 2. Rationale for An Background: Irrational Act . .. 5 Part 3. Hostage Taking at 30,000 Feet ......................................... 7 Part 4. The Hostage Taker as a Revolutionary ..................................... 10 Part 5. Modus Operandi of the Hostage Taker .................•...... , . , ...•...... , 15 Part 6. The New York Police Department Hostage Negotiating Team: Model for the Nation ......•.•.•.•.•. " ,.,., .•. , ... 19 Part 7. Planning, Preparation and Ill1plf;mentation of methods to deal with the Hostage Situation . , . .. 22 Part 8. Life and Oeath Negotiations .•..................... 28 Any criminal serious about the practice of his profession must also be practice of his profession must con­ aware of this and have his response Conclusion ........................................... 30 stantly review his techniques and his mapped out. For the taking of hostages weaponry. From the tUm-flam artist to is not confined to New York City and Your Departmental Plan of Operation the mass murderer, each has tlis own Washington, D.C. It can happen - and Form and Hostage Team Outline ............. .. 31 methods of achieving his aims. For the has happened - in Augusta, Georgia violent types there are machine guns and and Huntsville, Texas. bombs: for the more timid there are deft The tactic has spread like an a,irborne Published by the fingers with which to pick pockets. But virus, and it will continue til spread until AMERICAN POUCE ACADEMY there is one weapon in the criminal such time as the forces of law demon .. Headquarters Building arsenal which can throw the most strate conclusively the fruitlessness of 2000 "P" Street, N. W. complex coloration upon any police the tactic. But with the law always on the Washington, D.C. 20036 response: the taking of hostages. defensive, reacting to the latest in There are over 210 million people in criminal fads, there will always be a time the United States. Every one is a lag between the popularization of any potential hostage. Every serious, violent such technique and its eventual By a gra1ltfrom the Natio1lal Police & Fire Fighters Association, a Ilon­ criminal knows this. eradication. The problem is to make profit .fraten/al associatio1l ofLaw Enforcement Officers, Fire Fighters Every police officer serious about the that time lag as brief as possible. and Citizen Charter Members, working as a team to prevent crime and preserve life atld property. Page 1 Aircraft hijacking, which has much in method for dealing with a hostage common with - and is in fact a branch situation which helps to explain this in of - hostage taking, thrived until law great pari. And this lack is in turn enforcement officials were able to bring explained by the ract that the~'~ is a techniques superior to these of the seemingly infinite number of possible hijackers to bear on the problem. hostag'e situations. Aircraft hijackingg has now been Hostages can be held in a bank or a brought well under control. prison. They can be trapped in a retail But the impulse to take hostages has store or a private home. But there are not been similarly controlled for a always certain constants, certain variety of reasons. In fact, the situation unifying characteristics, and it will he by grows worse. recognizing these and analyzing them It is the absence of a systematic that a solution to the problem will come. The taking of hostages is nothing new. be preemptively applied. Thus, even in For as long as men have been attempting international reIL\tions, a field con­ to create order while other men seek spicuously marked by the absence of any chaos. it has been obvious to those enforceable law transcending national opposed to order that at times it works boundaries" hostages are routinely used to their advantage to seize others and in the day-fo-day business. If that seems hold their lives forfeit., an indefensible proposition, consider for The hostages may be randomly chosen a moment the long standing debate over or they may be selected because of anti-ballistic missiles - the ABMs. certain characteristics, i.e., their sex or There are in fact devices to remove large their social prominence. Women have urban popUlations from the status of historically been considered ideal hostages, which those popUlations are hostages for several reasons, among for as long as they live in cities targeted them that women are less likely to for nuclear destruction. It is probably present a physical threat to the captors. correct to state that at this time three Perh.aps more importantly, the cultural quarters of the American popUlation is Not p ..... at Go,....... e....... predisposition to protect women makes hostage to long range missiles. haded by ... N.d...... PolIce a1l it less. likely that any assault which could This parallel is not drawn for any Fire FI.llten Alloel.tloa by It. conceivably result in harm to the capricious reasons: law enforcement ....ben .... d ............... to hostages would be carried out. .............. ....., .raief.l. officials must realize that in any hostage t:at.... The willingness to use hostages ex­ situation they may encounter, the tends wherever the force of law cannot maneuvering and negotiating which they Page 2 Page 3 will be forced to hdndle will be roughly be woven. But above all, talk must go on. analogous to the international Negotiations must never br~ak down. diplomacy of the past dozen years. Every Those are the rules. But toward what miscalculation I)rings with it whe threat purpose? That the hostages not be of the ultimate disaster befalling the harmed. hostages. And to those whose lives are on This is the ultimate standard by which the line, it matters little whether they die all actions taken by any law enforcement alone, with two others or with 150 bodies involved in hostage situations will million others. The utmost skill is be judged: were the hostages harmed? If demanded of the police. not, the operation was a success. And to carry the analogy one step There is no trick at all to capturing further, the same tools need to be 2. Rationale hold up criminals. Sufficient tirepower employed in a hostage situation in a can be brought in any conceivable nlral American town as are employed in situation. The trick is in seeing that the for an the international arena. Concessions hostages come through alive. There is must be made. Blustery threats are the problem in its essence. occasionally called for. Subterfuges may Irrational Act Although hostage taking has always back toward the practicc of criminal becn pmcticed through recorded history, activities, and just as it is more likely it has in recent years grown to new that a salcsman who Icavcs his job will I... - I r" .. j .L. worldwide hcights. And it is no coin­ find a new job in salcs rather tI{an as a J cidcncc that this growth has parallcled mcrchant scaman. so it is probablc that thc worldwidc risc in political unrest. a criminal will continually gravitatc to i.. £ I r _-IIIJ!I For hostagc taking almost by its nature criminal employmcnt. has political overtones not normally But all this docs not change thc basic pT.·cscnt in trad itional criminal bchavior. fact that most ou !laws in fact hold in The bank robber of thc Willie Sutton cst('cm thc valucs of thc socicty whosc stripe has no quarrcl with .hc fun· laws they violatc. Aequisitivcncss is an damcntal arrangcments of socicty. From honored trait, and criminals for thc most the grcat bank robbcrs to thc smallcst part mercly scek to acquire things. dip, most criminal bchavior is actually According to somc, thc criminal is markcd by a profound agrccmcnt with simply too lazy to do his acquiring in reigning conventions. Thc bank robbcr Icgitimate ways. A reccnt conversation takcs moncy from banks bccausc hc with a police chief in a Gcorgia city concurs with the judgment of' the bankcr captured this analysis. that it is a good thing to have moncy. "Looks like it'll be an casy night for us Oncc he has sufficicnt moncy, hc tonight, boys," hc said as his night shift reasons, hc too, wil! Iivc wcll and cn­ gathercd in the squad room. Asked how tcrtain, perhaps raisc a family. Givcn the hc could make such a prcdiction, hc opportunity, the armed robbcr 01' thc marveled at thc qucstioncr's innoccnce: KANSAS Qrr. POllCE CLOSING IN - Law ellforcemellt officers sUrT'Olmd a thief is convinccd that hc would build a "Did you heal' that weather rcport'? It's suburball Overlalld Park. Kim .• apartmellt buildillg ill which two ballk robbewfook life as stable and as tranquil as any. Of going down to the thirties tonight. You nojllge. A Kallsas Highway Patrolmall, Sgt. Eldoll Miller, was killed by shots fired coursc thc most cursory study of rates of don't think our crooks down hcre would from tlte apartmellt. Olle ofthe two mell ill the apartment was shot ill tlte stomach. return figures provcs that thc Iikclihood go out on a night whcn it gets down to 11w robbers set off a dYllamite blast at the Overlalld Park city hall ill all apparent is much greater that the criminal will thc thirties, do you?" diversiolla,,' actioll.