Psychological Aspects of Crisis Negotiation

Thomas Strentz

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351367097
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Criminal Law
• Index: Law

Psychological Aspects of Crisis Negotiation, Third Edition, explores the methods and strategies for confronting the nine types of subjects typically encountered in hostage/suicide sieges by correctional staff and law enforcement crisis negotiators. Strentz, an experienced negotiator who designed and directed the FBI's hostage negotiator program, lays out the critical elements that are required for a successful encounter with a hostage taker or other malfeasant.

This book highlights psychological dynamics of negotiations as they apply to the negotiator, the hostage, and the subject. It discusses the predictors of surrender versus the need for a tactical intervention and examines the phases of a hostage crisis and the changing focus as the crisis develops. Referencing historical events such as the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Challenger and Columbia incidents, this text demonstrates how faulty group decision making can spell tragedy.

Enhanced with case studies to put the material into context, this third edition also includes new chapters on the SWAT team/crisis negotiator interface and on the genesis of the increased incidence of mentally ill hostage takers. Based on decades of experience in the fi eld and practical advice from a national expert, this volume arms negotiators with the knowledge and tools they need to defuse crises and increase the odds that hostages will survive.

Part I

Basic Concepts

1 In the Beginning

The Behavioral Science Unit (BSU) began with about a dozen instructors. With the passage of time and the recognition and broadening of the application of psychology, sociology, and political science, to law enforcement, the then fledgling few gradually became many units. The first such unit was designed to develop a professional hostage crisis response process that is discussed in my Introduction.

Col. Robert E. Lee, US Army

Historically, one can rightfully credit the on-scene commander, United States Army Col. Robert E. Lee and his negotiator, United States Army Cavalry officer, Lt. “Jeb” Stuart, who operated with a USMC “SWAT” team from the Marine Barracks in Washington, DC at Harpers Ferry, October 16–18, 1859 with one of the first instances of hostage negotiations in the United States. During this siege the on-scene commander, Col. Lee, eventually elected to assault. To preserve human life, he ordered the Marines, commanded by Lt. Israel Green, to unload their muskets and affix their bayonets. The Marines, who lost one of their own, Private Quinn, successfully overpowered John Brown and his followers (Green, 1885; Shriver, 1859). The axiom of preservation of human life was, and remains, the strategic and tactical goal of FBI crisis management.

The New York Police Department

The full credit for the development of the current concept and practice for hostage/crisis negotiations in law enforcement belongs to the New York City Police Department (NYPD). The history of this program is well discussed by its two founders, Frank Bolz and Harvey Schlossberg. Frank wrote Hostage cop and Harvey wrote Psychologist with a gun (Bolz & Hershey, 1979; Schlossberg, 1974). Harvey was a sergeant in the patrol division; he had a doctorate in clinical psychology and brought this expertise to bear on the problem. A few years earlier, after thirteen years of study, Frank earned his bachelor’s as one of the founding students from John Jay College of Criminal Justice. His educational efforts were hampered by his work assignments on the NYPD in very busy commands as a cop and detective. Both of these pioneers are so highly thought of in the law enforcement negotiations community that they have been awarded honorary life membership in the oldest and largest negotiator’s association in the world, the California Association of Hostage Negotiators (see p. 72). Because of his hands-on approach to crisis, Frank earned the nickname from the FBI National Academy as Frank Nuts and Bolts. Some say his nickname was attributed to the type of people with whom he dealt. I think they meant hostage-takers, not fellow NYPD officers or FBI Academy staff. He has lectured at the FBI Academy more often than any other law enforcement officer.

After the tragic 1972 Munich Olympics hostage siege, the NYPD realized that what had happened in Munich could happen here. Therefore, in late 1972, the decision was made to create a negotiations capability. Harvey Schlossberg and Frank Bolz discuss this process in their books (Bolz & Hershey, 1979; Schlossberg, 1974). They did the research and developed an excellent program. However, it languished for a few months until January 13, 1973, when four armed robbers entered John and Al’s Sporting Goods Store in New York and took several hostages. It was decided that a tactical intervention was out of the question. Thus, out of necessity, the negotiations program was born. After forty-three hours and the escape of the hostages, the subjects surrendered. It was then decided that a formal negotiations training program had to be initiated. With this incentive, Frank and Harvey completed their preparation and ran the first negotiator’s course (Bolz, 2016; Cawley, 1974).

Their first program was conducted at Floyd Bennett Field in April 1973. The class included two FBI BSU instructors, Pat Mullaney and Bud Teten. Pat is a former Christian Brother with expertise in behavioral science. Bud is a former Marine and California police officer who also had considerable expertise in behavioral science (Bolz, 2016).

Bud, who is also the father of criminal psychological profiling, understood the need for the FBI to have a hostage, now called crisis, negotiations capability. He immediately began writing an FBI version of the NYPD program. His initial efforts can be summarized by the following list of nine negotiation needs:

1 measure emotional stability

2 evaluate dedication to cause

3 never negotiate to supply weapons

4 stall for time

5 never offer suggestions

6 never agree to a demand without receiving something in return

7 keep the perpetrator in a decision-making status

8 nurture escape potential

9 select the negotiator with care.

Bud’s outline from 1973 remains in use today. In fact this text deals, almost exclusively, with the top of Bud’s list, “measure emotional stability”.

To this day, my good friend Frank Bolz insists that the FBI sent agents up to New York to steal his material. That just isn’t true … and I have told Frank this many, many times. The fact is, we were so impressed with his program that we invited him down to Quantico to make a presentation to our staff. It was during his week at Quantico that we absorbed his material.

While Bud was creating the initial version of the FBI Hostage Negotiations program the NYPD was asked by the police in Calgary, Canada, and San Francisco to run a program for them (Bolz, 2016). We taught Bud’s version of hostage negotiations from 1974 until the creation of our new unit, TRAMS, in the summer of 1976.

According to Bill Kidd, Sgt./Insp. (retired) SFPD, Frank and Harvey ran a program for them in September 1973. The SFPD ran its first course in September 1974 (Kidd, 2013). Like the NYPD, the vast majority of officers were from their department. Eventually, the SFPD course was given Police Officers Standards and Training (POST) credit and San Jose State University ran the program, in which I taught for almost twenty years after I retired from the Bureau.

Thanks to the foresight of the NYPD, the FBI became involved in hostage/crisis negotiations. The NYPD ran their courses in New York. The vast majority of their students were, and remain NYPD, officers. FBI training, in the field and at our academy is just the opposite. The vast majority of our students are local law enforcement officers. From our inception under J. Edgar Hoover in 1924, the FBI has had a mandate from Congress to train police. We have a Training Division for this purpose. It is interesting that the first two divisions created by J. Edgar Hoover were designed to assist police. They are Division I, our Identification Division (fingerprints, etc.) and Division II, our Training Division. My educated guess is that about 90 percent of FBI training efforts are designed for local law enforcement. Each field office has a police training co-ordinator and a cadre of instructors that range from basic law enforcement skills like fingerprinting to firearms, legal issues, crisis negotiations, profiling and on and on. This training mandate is why the FBI was able to use the hard work and research of the NYPD to spread it across our great nation. In the case of our unit, with the assistance of the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA), we could also spread it around the world.

The Wild Bunch

In 1976 the unit that was initially named TRAMS was now named the Crisis Negotiations Unit; it was our mission at the academy to identify terrorist activity and develop countermeasures. My partner, Con Hassel was an attorney with a master’s degree in Criminology who served as a Marine sergeant in Korea, where he won the Purple Heart. After he retired from the FBI he worked for the Central Intelligence Agency, where he earned their highest award for bravery, the Intelligence Star. He is the only FBI agent to be so honored. He was my partner, and remained my friend who was my boss for many years. When we formed TRAMS, Con and I were from behavioral science; we were joined in this endeavor by additional agents from The Range.

As discussed in the Introduction, our unit included, for the first time, negotiators, tactical folks from The Range and Tom Easton, a decorated former Army helicopter pilot as our air wing.

Con and I brought with us the BSU practice of active support for, not supervision of, field operations. In this regard, we assisted the Washington, DC field office of the FBI and the Washington, DC Metropolitan police during the three-day Hanafi Muslim siege in March of 1977. In August of 1978, I went to Chicago to assist that field office during the Croatian siege of the West German Consulate. Since those early days, the unit, now known as the Crisis Response Unit, has provided negotiators for every major FBI hostage incident to include the prison riots and hostage takings in Federal Correctional Institutions at Oakdale, LA; Atlanta, GA; and Talladega, AL, and many state prison incidents too numerous to mention. Other more infamous responses included Ruby Ridge, and Waco (Strentz, 1997).

The nickname for our unit was The Wild Bunch (Coulson & Shannon, 1999). We were charting new waters and were more concerned with results than our careers (this is also discussed on pp. xvi). As I mentioned in my Introduction, I think one of the main reasons for the success of our unit was our basic and collective attitude of selfless service. During my sixteen years at the FBI Academy, I observed this attitude in most of my peers and many of my supervisors. This mindset was exemplified by the service of Jack Kirsch, Jim Cotter, Harold Detroit Smitty, Con Hassel and later, when I returned to the Behavioral Science Unit, Roger Depue, also a former Marine NCO.

Hostage/Crisis Negotiations

“Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God.”

(Matthew 5:9)

The goal of crisis negotiations is the preservation of human life. In that pursuit, negotiators try to save lives. In so doing we try to bring peace to and terminate a conflict without injury to anyone. However, there are those situations where the on scene commander must make the difficult decision to take a life to save a life. In that endeavor, our efforts focus on saving the lives of the hostages and the tactical team. The tactical team, like the negotiating team, makes every effort to save as many lives as possible. Unfortunately, the reality is there are those subjects who initiate a hostage, barricaded, or suicidal crisis who do not share our priority and in so doing ensure their demise.

Con Hassel and I, under the leadership of Detroit Smitty, formed the Terrorist Research and Management Staff (TRAMS) in July of 1976. With the passage of time, someone figured out TRAMS was “SMART” spelled backwards. Not wanting to be the opposite of smart, our name was changed to Special Operations and Research Staff (SOARS). We said we soared with the eagles. I was told that then Director Judge Webster did not like acronyms, so the name was changed to Special Operations and Research Unit (SOARU). It is now known as the Crisis Management Unit within the Critical Incident Response Group.

As discussed, our first unit chief was Harold Smith, an accountant who had supervised the FBI Organized Crime Squad in Detroit. During World War II he served in the China Burma India Theater of Operations and was one of the best pistol shots in the FBI. Like Jack, he was a field police instructor. Smitty was hand picked by Jack and had the good sense to clarify our mission and then stand back. Like Jack, he ran interference for us. He was then and remains, a selfless and very honorable man who helped us work to our capacity on our mission. He took care of all the petty stuff generated by the bureaucracy. Detroit Smitty was Jack’s XO. When Jack retired Smitty took over as Chief of the Law Enforcement Arts Section. Con Hassel was promoted from my partner to my boss as unit Chief of SOARS and we still had Smitty to take care of us.

TWA 355

Our baptism of fire began at 8:19 p.m. on Friday night, September 10, 1976. Unfortunately, Smitty had taken that day off, was out of town and out of reach when four Croatians, with an American female, Julie Schultz Bušic´, the wife of the group leader, Zvonko Bušic´, hijacked TWA 355 as it flew from New York to Tucson, via Chicago. Because the flight originated at Washington National ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• PART I Basic Concepts
• PART II Dealing with the Other Victim
• PART III Crisis Resolution Indicators
• PART IV Group Dynamics
• PART V Hostage Issues
• Index