Hostage Negotiations, Crisis Intervention, And Suicide By Cop

Hostage Negotiations, Crisis Intervention, and Suicide by Cop Law enforcement officers work in a profession where seeing people at their worst s in the job description. Officers are not forced into firefights everyday of their lives like the mass media or television likes to portray; however, sometimes officers are put into difficult situations where their split second decisions can cost them their own life, the life of the suspect, or the life of an innocent bystander. Thankfully, officers are trained on how to deal with crisis situations, and there are professionals who specialize in hostage and crisis negotiations. Although many agencies use the terms “crisis” and “hostage” interchangeably, they actually mean two different things. “A
hostage is a person taken involuntarily and being held by the perpetrator with plans to trade them for something else in return” (Thomsen). If a person is to be considered a hostage, they absolutely have to be used as a bargaining chip. Otherwise, they are just considered a victim in a crisis situation (Thomsen). However, most media outlets and television shows use the term hostage for anyone who is taken involuntarily, because the word hostage carries a heavier connotation in most people’s minds than the word crisis does. Most people go through a midlife “crisis,” but not very many people are held as hostages during his lifetime. When officers first arrive on a scene involving a crisis or hostage negotiation, they are taught to implement the ICER concept. The officers want to Isolate the scene, and create an outer perimeter to keep the public and media out of danger and keep them from causing commotion the will set of the hostage taker. Next they want to Contain the hostage taker to the smallest area possible and make sure that they cannot observe police activity. They then Evaluate all of the information available such as if their are weapons involved and the state of the hostages.