EXCLUSIVE: Negotiator gives us an inside look
VANCOUVER, Wash. - Nearly a dozen negotiators worked all day and all night to get a man at the center of a lengthy standoff in Vancouver to give up and come out peacefully.
Early Thursday morning, 28-year-old Matthew Hastings did finally come out of the home he was holed up in at Southeast 156th and 12th in Vancouver, but not until officers made a move by filling the home with tear gas after a charge blew open a window.
Before then, negotiators spent 20 hours trying to diffuse a volatile situation involving an officer who ended up with a bullet lodged in his back, a hostage who spent hours inside the house while suffering from a gunshot wound as well and a man who refused to come out of a house.
During long, intense standoffs like the one in Vancouver, several negotiators may work to make a personal connection with the person at the center of it all.
"The emotions are very high at the very beginning and as that trust and rapport gets built, we start having a constructive dialogue," said Sgt. Mike Cooke with the Southwest Washington Hostage Negotiation Team.
Cooke was one of the team members working the Vancouver standoff. He knew an officer had been shot earlier in the day and that a hostage's life was on the line, a situation that would make anyone a nervous wreck.
"Sometimes they tell us, you're just going to have to shoot me," said Cooke. "Oftentimes they tell us right up front that this is not going to end well."
The negotiators work out of a specially-equipped sheriff's van, what they call the 'intel room.'
The first step is making contact, sometimes with what they call a 'throw phone.'
"Typically, it's tossed through a window or an open door because obviously a hostage barricade situation is not something where we simply just walk up, knock on the door and hand them a phone," said Cooke.
When Cooke calls the person, he first asks how he can help.
"Sometimes the response is loud," he said. "Sometimes there are some obscenities in there as well."
The goal is to establish a rapport.
"We may talk about sports or common interests, common hobbies, anything to establish that personal connection," said Cooke.
Hostage negotiations can get too personal if a family member calls the gunman.
"(They might say) 'look what you're doing, are you thinking about the family, you've always been a loser, now look what you're doing,'" Cooke said. That type of talk is certainly not the way to calm down an emotional, unstable person.
With every sentence, negotiators evaluate what is working and what is not.
"We may say something that perhaps the suspect doesn't like to hear and we learn from that," said Cooke, who added it is all a matter of knowing what to say and what not to say.
If negotiations begin to fail, it is not up to negotiators to call for force - that is up to tactical commanders, who listen in on everything going on inside the van and make decisions based on what they are hearing.
Even after a hostage is out, Cooke said they still care about the life inside.
"Nobody wants to hurt another human being and we try to avoid that," he said.