"Inside the Minds of Hostage Negotiators: High-Stakes Conversations"

Music. Sergeant Chris Farley and Mo, we're going to do another episode regarding hostage negotiators and crisis negotiators.

They call them different things depending on where we are. But Sergeant Farley was his hostage negotiator in Maine. And as we discussed before, Mo was a hostage negotiator in Florida. So I'm very interested in digging into kind of the different trainings, the types of calls for service, the tactics, the deployments, things of that nature. But Chris, I really appreciate you being here, brother. Well, thanks for having me back. Appreciate it. Love it. Mo.

Yes. Thank you. I appreciate you coming. I'm excited about this because negotiators, you know, we're not as, for lack of better terms, they don't refer to us as being as sexy as SWAT operators a lot of times. So it's nice to talk to someone else who found interest in this part of it. I think I'm interested really to how you guys do things and how you guys did things with the training and with deployments and those kind of things.

And just for clarity, are you still currently an active negotiator because of your mission now that you have to give it up? I just stepped down probably the end of last summer. So the end of 2024, but 11 years. Sign off on it as long as it's not somebody who is, you know, got an IA file as big as a photo book. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They, you know, I can't remember the last time. It's like we've said the team said we want this individual and they've said no.

It's usually they have an IA file. Maybe they double-checked their timeline service and, oops, we actually made a mistake. They haven't hit a time requirement. You know, they're asked probably two or three months, and they don't want to do that. But in the end, the team commander, if that was fine, I'll say on who they select.

I see. So now rolling into talking about how you guys train. I know for us, once we get our negotiator on the team, for the first good year, they are, for lack of better terms, we call them, they're our truck bitch. They go get the truck. They go get the equipment. They do those kinds of things because they haven't, in many cases, been through the training that we require before they're able to get on the phones.

So we do a lot of mock training with them, though, to get them up to speed in the meantime. And then for us in Florida, we put them through a minimum. The bare minimum is a three series of classes that they have to go that's a week long that they go through. And once they've completed those, then they can be utilized on the phone as a primary negotiator. Up until that point, we're using them to scribe. We're using them to get the truck. We're using them to get equipment prepared.

We're using them to, we don't even really put them in the backup negotiator role, really, but we'll put them in any of the support roles. Yeah, the same thing kind of goes for how we do it. So our requirement is the 40-hour FBI hostage negotiation school. They have to have that before they can even be considered to go on the phone. So that can be dependent upon when that class is put on.

That could be, you know, they could get on and they have that school within, I think I got on in April and June, I was going into school. And then I've known other people on the team who've kept finding out and like, and hey, congratulations, you're going to be selected. They start doing the scribe, grabbing the truck, going to calls, sometimes just going to calls and just observing.

He's sitting there and, you know, kind of doing whatever's needed, but no real rule up until they get that 40-hour course.

And then they'll ease into the rules because our rules are, I don't know how unique they are compared to others, but we will always have a negotiator in our, we fought the bearcatter, our lead farm, 1,000, if not two, negotiators in there to talk on the PA.

We usually have one whose primary role is to be the one on the PA, and then we'll have a coach who can monitor radio traffic, maybe offer suggestions if the tactical team says they want something done or whatever, can relay that message to them. And then we'll put them in that role. The big role for usually the first six months is just to scribe.

To grab the truck if they need to, to scribe, and just kind of do some intel gathering, You know, we've had guys that are newer to the team that are detectives that work in our major crimes unit. So they're really good with interviewing victims and witnesses to get that information. So we'll put them on those tasks that maybe they have experience with outside of the negotiation team.

And then, you know, sometimes then eventually they'll work their way up to primary on the phone and then primary in PA and R. Yeah. It sounds like we do things pretty similar. I laughed when you said that normally we don't send our new negotiators to go forward. We typically, like in a Bearcat, we would not always, when I was on the team, we didn't always have someone in the Bearcat just because of rooms, the availability of space necessarily in our Bearcat.

But we would usually have a negotiator, at least one negotiator forward. I'll tell you a funny story. When I made the negotiator team here, the background, I don't know if you listened to the other episode, but me and my husband were not married at the time, weren't dating. He happened to be the team leader of the negotiators. And when I made the team, my very first negotiation, I'm out there. You know, when you're first there, you're trying to impress people. You're on a specialty team.

The minute I made the team, I'm like, let me get a spare uniform in my trunk. Let me get my equipment in there so I'm ready. in case something happens. So this particular day, somebody else was closer to the truck. So I drove my patrol car to our call out that we had. And I'm like, okay, awesome. And I go into my trunk. I get ready to switch my clothes because at the time I was assigned to our crime prevention unit. So I would come to work in just plain dress clothes.

And this particular day, I happened to be wearing probably the highest high heels that I could have possibly wore to work. When I go into my trunk to get dressed, I realized I packed every bit of my equipment except for a pair of boots. So I go up, tell my team leader, sir, I am here. I'll do whatever you need. And he's like, well, you need to get your uniform on. I'm like, sir, I can't do that. I don't have any boots. And he goes, oh, you don't? He goes, cool. You're the forward bullhorn team.

And I'm like, are we kidding? He's like, nope. There's your swat on. I think I was wearing high heels because she saw Poppy Chulo on there. But that's after my life. I never believed you'd boosted home again. I never, but I spent the next four hours laying in my dress pants, high heels, and because we're in Florida, I was wearing a sleeveless shirt with my attack vest over it. So, look, I was wearing a tack vest, dress pants, and high heels. So, that was that. Yeah, we're fortunate.

I've driven the Bearcat Actals for a tactical team. They've been down operators, and I've driven it around calls. I've been in that Bearcat probably more often than I care to admit. It would always be. But when I first started, so you're talking 2008, I was a brand-new negotiator. We were in there most calls. It was starting to get more and more after when I came back in 2021. Every call is at least one negotiator in the Bearcat or the armored car.

And they're really doing that bullhorn, but they're also there to, you know, sometimes just eyes on, you know, doing whatever they can in that bearcat. And they actually got a bigger one recently, so we have a little bit more space. We can put two in, so sometimes there'll be a coach who will just kind of sit behind the primary negotiator and the bearcat who's in the front passenger seat.

And, you know, that's what we'll put, you know, once we feel comfortable that somebody is relatively ready to go, that's actually kind of the first taste they get of being put in the hot seat, we call it. And, you know, for the ones where you think, all right, this is probably going to be negotiating on the phone. We'll put them, or maybe a search warrant. We'll help out our tactical team with search warrants. Right.

We'll get on that opportunity to test them in a lower stress-related calls where it's, yes, it's stressful, but it's not somebody that's got hostages or he's shooting at people or anything like that. It's just a surrounded call out, and then they work their way into the phones and be in primary on the phones.

Right. Yeah, that's very similar. When I left, we were starting to move towards what you guys were doing, and I'm sure by now they probably have integrated fully like that because it does make sense.

But I just thought that was funny when you were like, we don't send them forward, and I don't think we typically do. I think that was a lesson that was being taught in my situation. Yeah, I was thrown in that relatively. I mean, so that would have been 08, 09. I was thrown in that roles right off. I think it was the old time. I joke, it's the old school way. Like, oh, you're new here. Here's how you get to learn. We're going to throw you to the wolves and see if you can, you know, survey.

You know, I had my sergeant at the time, my patrol supervisor, was on the team. And one of my first calls was on the PA. And he was standing, you know, next to me with the swatch field. And I'm, you know, on the side of the bear cat hall to the guy. And he looks at me and goes, hey, just take a deep breath. Forget that we're all here because we can hear everything you're saying. Oh, thanks, Arj. I appreciate that. Chuck a little bit and then went on, but yeah.

No big deal. I can relax now. I feel better. Thank you. Yeah, thanks. Thanks for reminding me that they're only one, not only on your team, but the neighbors can all hear what I'm saying. So if I say something dumb, thank you. And just for clarity, were you a negotiator or were you also the team leader for your team at a point? No, I was never a team leader. I was always a negotiator.

I did eight years, my first stint. And then when I left, I was one of the senior people on the team, but I wasn't. The team leader. I kind of enjoyed not being the team leader because the team leader did a lot of administrative duties and would get to the calls and they were kind of managing the scene. Kind of enjoyed just being the one that was like, where do you want me to go? What do you want me to do?

I like getting my hands dirty a little bit. And when I came back in 2021, I had a conversation with the commander and I said, I want to come back. I said, but I'm a sergeant supervising now. I don't want to supervise it. I just want to show up and like, I want to work. And I came back and I got to play negotiators. And it's like, I was a brand new person. So it was great.

That's awesome. That's awesome. I just wanted to figure that out because I know with being a supervisor in your everyday role, a lot of times they do want to move you right into that position. So that's why I wanted to clarify that. You said your negotiators, they don't go on the phone until after they've gone through at least minimally the FBI class.

Is there additional training that you require or that you are looking to get your folks in before you completely, you know, cut them loose to be a negotiator? Yeah, we have monthly training, one, two, three days a month, depends on the month. And our Criminal Justice Academy actually created a certification process for negotiators. So in order, and this was recently, so right now for someone to be on the phone, they have to be considered certified.

And the way you get certified is you attend the 40-hour school and then you do equivalent of 40 hours a year training. So obviously if they got fired later in the year and they've been through the school, We'd probably see it would be a good six to eight months and depending on how many calls they'd been to as well before we even kind of put them on. But we'd like to make it until they were at least through that FBI school. And we could probably say they they passed.

They were certified through the state because if something went south. We all knew that what's the first thing everybody would jump on? Well, is he certified? Yeah. So, you know, if it was going to be, you know, a surrounding call out of, you know, for a search warrant, yeah, they may throw, we may put them in there early on, you know, truly on the phone, it would be we knew that, you know, the commander would make the decision of, hey, yep, they're certified.

So if this went south, you could hold it in court or wherever you were, you know, as a certified negotiator through the Arc Criminal Justice Academy. Awesome. I have a lot of questions now. I promise you, Tyler, I'm going to ask a couple and then I'll throw it to you. Well, because we in Florida are not certified. You become a negotiator, you get on the team, you take the three classes and you negotiate. You go forth and negotiate.

I don't think there's ever been a discussion of even having, as an instructor, FDLE, our Florida Department of Law Enforcement, is the governing body for all of our certifications. And the idea of having a negotiator certification has never even, I've even heard up for discussion. So it's a state certification that goes along with your law enforcement certification. How does that work?

Yeah, so it got, it came in two tuition years, years ago. I can't remember if I was still on the team or if I just stepped down. So the way our certification goes in general is we have to be certified through like the Maine Criminal Justice Academy as a board of directors, board of trustees. And so like when Tyler came up, He had to present to the board, can he be waived from basic academy that all law enforcement has to go to?

So with that, they started to create certifications for certain specialties. And I think it started... With the tactical teams and SWAT teams up here, like they had, in order to be, I'm not going to talk on it because I don't know enough about it, but basically to be on a certain level or tier, you had to have an X amount of people, including a negotiation team with that. Develop this certification process to be considered a certified negotiator.

So any, you know, you could work in a PD that's got eight guys and you could go to the FBI course and say you're a negotiator. And then you could talk to some guy in crisis and say, well, you know, our crisis negotiator, that's perfectly fine. There's nothing wrong with that. But to be considered certified, you have to go through the Criminal Justice Academy to meet those. I think it's 40 hours of training a year.

I can't remember exactly. I just showed up to our trainings and the commander took care of it and said we were certified. Seems right. I love it. Very interesting because that, for me, it's one of those things that like, oh my gosh, we've never thought about this, but it would make sense to have certified negotiators for liability's sake because it is a very liability-heavy position.

I mean, the surrounding call-outs aren't, but if we're talking about, you know, I'm negotiating with someone who's holding their family hostage. Yeah, that's a big deal as to saying this person is equipped and has done everything that they need to do for it. So pretty interesting on that. Tyler, anything?

Well, I was going to touch on the certifications. I am interested in getting some of your guys' negotiator stories, but I've learned just traveling around with different departments, a lot of departments don't like to certify their folks, so they can't leave. So if you're a firearms instructor with, you know, whatever, Portland PD. And you're not certified. You can't go transfer to Bangor PD and say, hey, I'm a firearms instructor. Like, no, you're not. You don't have a certification.

And I'm just I'm just using them as examples. But a lot of agencies do that. And I found out when I went through firearms instruction that the training program on the federal side, I was the only one that wasn't already a firearms instructor for their agency. And I even asked, I was like, well, then why the fuck are you coming here? Like, what?

They're like, no, this is like the gold standard, because once you have this certification, You can now go teach firearms to any federal law enforcement agency in the country, and most locals will allow it as well, like there's precipitation there. So it's kind of one of those shitty little tactics. But, and Chris, correct me if I'm wrong, in Maine, it's really not like that.

I mean, there's some little beefs back and forth, but you can kind of, once you've gone through the basic academy, you can bounce around every department if you so choose. I'm not recommending that, but is that correct? Yeah, you can. And you can go from like Portland to Lewiston to the Sheriff's Department.

You can come over to us. We have a little bit different. The retirement system is really the only thing that prevents people from bouncing from like state to state or county to, or sorry, local or county to us in the state because we have a different retirement than the local, the county guys do. But yeah, I can leave the state police right now and go work for a local police department. and by certification, everything carries over.

It would just be the retirement. But yeah, guys, some guys bounce around and the certification process up here, it's pretty good because like in order to meet the requirement to stay certified as a police officer, I have to do X number of hours with firearms. I can't do it. I can't just sign myself off or I can't say, hey, Tyler, come sign me off and make sure I hit this qualification course.

It has to be through a certified instructor through the MCJA, which allows departments who want these people to come and want to keep them. So they get everybody certified as quick as they can because they know us are certified. It makes their job a lot easier. That's interesting. Yeah, I am too, because I'm the type that once you've given me intellectual knowledge and I can take it with me, that, you know, it's mine forever.

So I like the idea of having a certification to be able to take somewhere else with me, but I get that agencies don't want that for that reason. And even our agency down here, we don't, we will have people who teach firearms and things like that, and they're not certified by the state. They're just certified by our agency for that exact reason, I'm sure. Yeah, we shouldn't even do that up here. Like firearms is the perfect example. You can't teach firearms unless you've been certified.

So I can go, you and I can go shoot, no big deal. I can teach you how to shoot, but it doesn't mean anything for your status as a law enforcement officer here. It needs to be done through certified, which is nice actually. Yeah, we can, we have a state certification for firearms. So like I'm a firearms instructor with FDLE, but they're in our agency because they needed so many to run through in-service and things like that. They would do a in-house firearms cert just to teach to make sure.

And they were able to still sign off on things and whatever, but they could only teach at our agency. I can teach anywhere in the state of Florida, but it's a totally different class that you have to go through. Makes sense. Interesting, probably the way it should be across the board, but who am I? We're solving all the problems.

I know. So we dived off into a lot of different things, but I don't want to skip over. I want to hear some interesting calls because I'm sure that you have had some in your 11-year tenure with being a negotiator. Can you think of one that you would want to share with us that you found interesting or unique? Like in our previous episode, we talked to Frank and he spoke about he negotiated with a guy at a gun range, which was unheard of.

They negotiated for drugs. They did a couple of other things and that was unheard of. So we found it a little bit interesting. So tell us, Chris, what do you have? It's so funny. I was thinking when Tyler asked, I started trying to dig through the memory bank of calls that I've been on. And I think my funniest story, I guess you can say, as a negotiator is, so I get put on the team. So I'm a brand new, you know, with the department, I think just over a year

on. I had my local time on and I go to the 40 hour FBI course on a, like graduate on a, you know, finish on a Friday. I'm like, Oh, this is cool. I think it was that Sunday. We had a standoff at our state prison up in Warren. So this was, I want to say 2008, 2009. I can't remember exactly. And a guy had somehow, uh, grabbed a shank and had taken a librarian and another inmate hostage in like the librarian's office, the prison library.

And this is the maximum security prison for us. So when they called me, I actually thought they were joking because the running joke was, everyone's going to get a call and everybody on the team is today. Congratulations. So they, I thought they were just pranking me because I was like, there's no way that doesn't, it's main, this isn't happening up here. So that call was unique because that was the very first call I'd ever been on.

So my first call was a hostage situation in a prison with actual hostages. And that one was unique because it really showed me being a team aspect. They obviously didn't put me as the primary negotiator, but I was helping out gathering intel, logging things of what was going on. But the funniest story is the negotiator, who's a good friend of mine. The tactical team was staying on a site, and they wanted to see into where this librarian's office was.

For some reason, there were no cameras in that office. I don't know why. So they grabbed a coffee cup, drilled a hole in it, and put the – I don't know if you're familiar with what – I think it was a Reddington.

It looked like a baseball and had a camera in it. they put that in the cup left it out on the front so you couldn't see where the hole was and the negotiator went up and was talking through the complex glass to this guy and you'd have the camera and all of a sudden you'd look over and the negotiator would be to talk with him and then you'd see him up take a sip and the camera would go up and he'll come back down.

They did that for the longest time and then I think they ended up getting the librarian out and the running joke the whole time was they kept making the tactical guys sick because Because they'd be staring at it, and all of a sudden, whoop, up and we're going to come back down. It's bossing around. And that, I remember when they ended up reaching the window, and the guy dropped to the ground. And I remember... They gave that guy, when he retired, they gave him that mug that had the camera in it.

So, I mean, here I am, you know, I'm a new trooper, a new negotiator, and I'm going, are these calls going to be like this? Like, are we going to have, you know, this stretch where, you know, I'm sitting here in the state prison with guys and we're drilling holes in coffee mugs to get him to be able to watch. But yeah, that was probably one of the first call. I think it's always probably the most memorable one to start. But I mean, I have everything from, so I thought of that.

I have some questions about that one because it's intriguing already. So a standoff at a prison and this prison has a librarian in it that's a max security prison. Yeah, I don't remember. I mean, Chris, that was what? It's almost 10 years ago. A long time ago. I don't remember the ins and the outs. But yeah, you know how they have volunteers that help? He was doing something like that, if I remember correctly. I can't remember her.

But yeah, I think they said she went back to work after that day. I think that was her last day in the office. I don't know if you guys know, but I quit. I think I'm going to be sick tomorrow, and so the foreseeable future. Thank you. And Mo, I just want to throw this out there real quick, because again, I've worked with both of you. But to put it in perspective, specialty teams, Chris, how many troopers are there? Like 240? I think we're just at 300. We're just over 300 now.

Beautiful. And then how many hostage negotiators total, like roughly? I think you're talking they're complemented maybe 12 to 16, somewhere in that area. And then SWAT guys? Yeah, I think it's gone up. It's over, I don't know, 25, 30, somewhere in that general. But just imagine this They're having to respond They could be in Tallahassee and have to go down to Key West, That's insane. It's not a county. They're not all in the same area or the same zone, the same region.

Sometimes you're doing a two-hour, sometimes a four-hour, sometimes a six-hour, you know, whatever it might be, drive just to get there to then start.

I'm not saying it's not good all the time, but yeah, it's not like equally spread out. We need one in every region or whatever. It's not like that. So I'm just trying to put a little perspective on it because it's a little different. That's wild because like for us, we were just a county. And even probably if I went from one side of the county to the other, it might be an hour and a half, maybe.

But typically, your negotiations aren't going to be an hour and a half away, thank goodness for us, because that would be, that to me is just wild to hear that they're coming. And I mean, it makes sense. You guys are Maine State Police, whereas we were a county. So that's incredible. You said an hour and a half, and I used to love roadruns. I mean, those were, like, I'd plug in. If I didn't, if it sounded French, I knew I was going to be driving for probably at least four and a half hours.

And then, you know, it's comical when I would get, you know, you get called at 2 o'clock in the morning. So, you know, hurry up and go and get dressed and, you know, get out to your cruiser, sign on, and then plug in the GPS. And it's a, you know, 400 or 500, you know, mile destination. It's a four-hour destination, and, you know, it eventually gets to the point where you're, you know, you're pulling in the gas station, lights and lights, and you shut everything down.

You get the gas off, pretend like nothing's going on. They get back in the car and do it again. The second time to gas, it's, I mean, they can get comical when you pass the same people four times getting on and off the highway to get down. That's hysterical. Absolutely. And I will say, like, this is why I was excited about this conversation, because this is something we would never, it would never even be something we'd have to even talk about.

Let it know and be like, hey, new guy on the team, this is how we do things, because it would never happen like that. I mean, we've had, I think of a call, we were told it was a search warrant. This was years ago, so we had an older truck for a command vehicle. And it was, it's not the big one, but it didn't go above like 75. And it wouldn't start, and they needed that in basically the tip of the state.

And you would just drive it. You wouldn't even throw the lights on if you had to. You just drive. And you're just sitting there driving along. I showed up, and it's myself, and now the team commanders. We met in Augusta where the truck was to drive up together so we didn't have to. You know, you had somebody to drive with, and it took forever to get up there. I get out. I'm not even on the scene. They're like, hey, we're going. We're deploying out.

They go, grab your faster in the bear can. I go, what? They go, hurry up, get in. So I get the Bearcat. They drive off. I go, what am I doing? I had no idea. Because they were waiting for us because we couldn't. One, we were delaying getting it going. And then two, just the sheer travel time, you know, was I think it was like four hours up and then four hours back. And you're talking eight hours, just sometimes just driving.

And that's not to mention it could be a four, six, eight hour call, depending on the nature of it. And that's not just negotiating that's tactical team guys driving that way. That's wild that is a new perspective on if you need backup yeah.

That's incredible because like I said we would run hot you know lights and sirens because we're only going max and like I said that would be if we're going literally across our entire county it would be an hour and a half more than likely we'd be 30 minutes 20 minutes out our entire team would be there in that time frame.

So that's wild to hear that. But like you said, it was interesting. Your first negotiation actually had hostages because I was thinking back on my career, and I can only think of a handful of times that we had actual hostages. Most of ours were just barricaded person who's threatening to harm themselves more often than not. That was what we dealt with on a more regular basis. Yeah. When I first came out, we had a lot more of the time. I just assaulted my typical.

It's DV barricade. I beat my wife. I'm drunk. I'm inside. I don't want to come out for the troopers that are unseen and the local officers. The last few years, I left the team and they had probably four, three or four calls with true hostages. I know they had one, Probably a year and a half, two years before I came back of a guy who had multiple hostages with pipe bombs. He threw pipe bombs at the first responders.

So I think, I can't remember the number of pipe bombs they found in the house, active pipe bombs when it ended. But yeah, had hostages, threw pipe bombs, and people go, that doesn't happen. I go, surprisingly, it happens up here more often than I think people would think of. That's wild. That's amazing. Well, Moe, let me give an example for you, just to get a comparison. In respect to a hostage situation? Yeah, or whatever it's called, just kind of the deployment.

Because, again, the logistics in Maine, it's something that I don't. Yeah. You know, Chris just talks through it, but it's like I remember it. I remember going, what the fuck am I doing? God damn, this is taking forever. You work, and Tyler, come on, you work in the southernmost county in this state. You have that can already have Jimmy across the county. Yeah, yeah. Only a couple times I had to do the whole, it was usually the best

way up where I had to get gas and they'd keep going. I'm like, this is insane. It's funny, we are considered one of the bigger counties down here, but like I said, I can think of a negotiation that we responded out to that was. A pretty intense one, but it was, and it was, I would say, one of our ones that are considered further out because it was on the east side of our county, but our entire team was there and hit the ground ready to deploy in about probably like 45 minutes.

This one happened to be a negotiation with a, actually he was a detention deputy for one county over from us. And this one was actually funny twofold, actually. We were all there. We were ready to deploy. I actually was in the Bearcat that day myself, and I had a backup negotiator with me. And our truck had some issues, so we deployed prior to the truck getting there.

And once we, like I said, it was 30 minutes we were on the phone, the call came out that he had opened the door and he had fired around at the deputies that had responded. And then once they did background, they discovered he was a detention deputy from a neighboring county. So of course they called us out. They called SWAT out. We get there, we go forward. And he probably, I was on the phone.

I eventually, we tried to bullhorn him and then we got him on the phone and we spent probably the first two hours talking about nothing. And by then, luckily, we had gotten our truck there. He wanted to talk to me about his car, where his favorite vacation spot was, which, you know, I told you, like, we, to build those bridges, we talked about whatever.

So once we got through and we started getting to the nitty-gritty, what it boiled down to is he was pissed at his prior agency because he was unhappy with how the. He was, he, his argument was he wanted me to get the sheriff on the phone. So he kept hanging up on me. And the reason why I said it was kind of funny because again, going back to my now husband was the team leader. He eventually had to write me up because he slammed the phone down on me.

And I was like, Oh, when he hung up and they said, what, what does this guy want, Mo? I said, he wants to talk to the fucking sheriff. And they were like, and I said, and that sheriff isn't going to come here and talk to me. He did. He'd be like, I don't care. The only problem was that my secondary had not stopped the recording, and so it recorded me. Whoopsie. Got me. And to make it even better, he ended up shooting at us again.

And we ended up, eventually he came out because actually before he shot at us, me and him had actually built a good rapport. And he shot at us. And then at that point, I said, okay, we're going to go silent. I'm not going to talk to him. So when he called back, we put him on the phone with another negotiator, and he demanded to talk to me. And they said, no, you shot at the car that she's, you know, the truck that's there that she's in.

You shot at it, so she's not talking to you. And he's like, if I come out, will she talk to me? Long story short, he came out because he wanted to talk to me. I went and talked to him and explained to him that now he was under arrest for attempted murder of a law enforcement officer.

That claim that when he took it to court, that recording, that my secondary didn't play court. Damn. Got you, Mo. Yeah. So my now husband wrote me up for that. Yeah, those calls are, you know, that's the building the rapport is the, you know, I think the biggest thing that people forget that we do, especially the tactical teams, they forget sometimes that that can take two, three, four hours to.

And when I was a newer negotiator I was always put in the barricades for some reason that I had a very good ability to just keep talking so I was in the PA all the time trying to get in, for the longest time I had a stretch of there'd be no answer on the phone there'd be you know the local department or whichever agency was there couldn't get them to come out and then I I'd hop in, I'd get on the PA, and within 45 minutes, 50 minutes out, they'd come wandering

right out of the house, hands up, and give up, so I had a stretch where they were like, four or five in a row that you've done. And then I hit a stretch where we all have a dark sense of humor, where it was the exact opposite for me. Pretty much. It started with a guy who shows up at a house. I think he had an issue with one of the homeowners. He started shooting at him in the house. They bail out. Now he's barricaded inside the house.

He comes. We surround the house. I'm in the bear cat. He comes out. So I am trying to negotiate with him what's going on, trying to get him to pick up the phone, and he says he's going back inside. I said, okay, great, so you're going back inside to get a phone. That would be really great because we can talk to you. We can do it over the phone versus us trying to yell. Well, he comes back out. He has something black in his hand. I'm like, oh, good.

I really appreciate that you got the phone. He goes, this isn't a fucking phone, or he mentions something like that, and he starts to raise his hand towards the armored car that I'm in. And I hear, you know, the loud bang he drops. Well, he had a gun. What he had said in the tactical team, the guys told me later was, I don't have a fucking phone, I have a gun. And he started to raise it towards the armored car and obviously shot and killed him. So I had that one.

And then probably like four months later, five months later maybe, with no call, I didn't. Don't think there were any calls or at least no significant calls that stood out. But I wasn't in those roles. The next person I get on the phone, I talked to a guy in the cemetery. He was suicidal for five and a half hours. And then as we're on the phone, things are going well. Yeah, I think, you know, he kept mentioning sunset. It's getting dark.

And then he says, we're just having a conversation like we are here. And then I heard a pop and the doctor right here on the radio says, we think he just shot himself. So he ended up shooting himself. And these were literally like back-to-back calls where I had been put on the phone. So the running joke was I either kept them alive really well or they don't want me anywhere near anybody because it ended as an victim for me.

So I laugh about it now because it's one of those things where we did our job, nobody else got hurt. So you would what we would affectionately call the Grim Reaper on our team because we had to know they'd get on the phone and the person would immediately shoot themselves. We're like, well, so.

That's the thing. thing yeah i i had a stretch and then i broke it for a long long time it's actually you know i was very well known for for some reason i get on the pa and it usually within sometimes and 20 minutes sometimes longer depending on you know the nature they always had a tendency to come out and then you know just that little stretch right there yeah i was i was taken offline you could say in a funny manner for a little while just like yeah let's

have you be the secondary in the coach for a little bit see if this works out better that's great do you have any other any ones that you can think of that would again just kind of stand out one because that like you said the first one we all remember and then we we have these ones that usually will be like yeah this one was a little bit different uh i was trying to think of like that that.

Different one. And, you know, I think a lot of the calls that stand out to me are the ones that you got them to come out. Right. You know, there were, I mean, it was so many over the course of the years where I kept thinking about, you know, the one, you know, there's been a few, the most recent one I have that really stood out where I think it shows the demeanor of being a negotiator was the guy had an issue with his neighbor.

His neighbor's sitting in the car and he fires like three or four rounds into the car and actually hit the guy. So he was out to the hospital and we were pretty sure the guy was going to die. So I'll never forget it because I was at my daughter's swim meet. So I had to give my daughter to another swim coach, drive an hour and 20 minutes of my personal vehicle home to turn around and hop my cruiser and drive, basically back the way I came, plus another five minutes.

And I get there and they're like, hey, you're going to go on the phone. Oh, okay. And he is someone that we had negotiated with in the past. One of the other guys on the team had when I was not in the interim, when I was not on the team. So he'd been through this process before. And in that process, he got negotiated with them. Being very irrational and rational, he'd come back down, he'd say, I'm coming out.

I think he came out and he ran into the rim, if I remember correctly, because they had breached the door, and he ran into the rim, kind of knocked himself down, and they took him into custody. So, I was negotiating with him, and I remember him specifically talking about, well, the last time you beat me up, you did all this. And the same thing, we were back and forth going, and he's like, you know what? Yeah, I'll come out.

I've had enough. I'll come out. And then two minutes later, you know what? Screw you. Well, during that conversation, he at one point, I still never verified if he Googled it, but he's like, he goes, I'm going to do things to your two daughters. And I have two daughters, and I didn't tell them my name. Like, I just said my name. I didn't tell them my last name. No, I think I used my last name because with a name like Chris Farley, I used that as a way to relate to people.

Some of the older, my generation actually laughs. The younger generation are like, who are you talking about? So we were joking about Tommy Boy and living in a fandom in the river, but he does say something about what he is going to do to my two girls. And it's pretty graphic about what he's going to do to them. And I never changed. My demeanor never changed. our tactical team. They have an app that records our conversation, but that they can listen in

on in the Bearcat. So they were listening on that. Long story short, he says he's coming out. So he comes out and then he becomes a flaming pain and ends up getting bit by one of our canines. And they take him into custody. So we go back and we're doing the debrief and Aaron's pretty one of the tactical team guys. And the negotiators said, I don't know how you didn't change your tone or demeanor because inside, I'm never forgetting this. I'm like, oh shit, does he actually know?

Did he do research somewhere somehow and figure out that I actually have two daughters or is this just a pure coincidence? I think in the end it was just a coincidence because he didn't have any weight. I don't think he had a computer or anything like that. But that call stands out to me in the sense that all that stuff that he was saying one, it was inside I'm burning up because I want to throw a bunch of him and throttle him.

I am at the same point going, does he know who I am? Was he able to do research and find out who my family was? I think that was probably one of the last ones that I was on the true barricade that I'd been on the phone on most of the others since that point I'd been put in the barricade. Wow. You said that. I got upset for you, Chris. I was getting upset. We have some really good, we have a good relationship with our tactical team. Like they're very, like we get a lot, we're very fortunate.

We get along really well with them. There's no real animosity. Like they can give me a ration of crap. I can give them a ration of crap. Well, the canine handler whose dog bit him said, hey, forget what the dog's name was. Hey, you know, so-and-so heard that. He decided to take a little extra bite for you. And I think this guy, good. So I said, well, I appreciate that because I couldn't do it. So, yeah, wow.

That's why that's wild because I, you know, like when you said that, like the hair on the back of my neck stood up because that's like your worst nightmare. And you know what, like when you were saying earlier that I think that a lot of negotiation, like what's more important is not the physical fitness, but what goes on between the ears. And that's what I don't think people always recognize that negotiating with people is mentally exhausting.

You are constantly trying to have a conversation while thinking five or six moves ahead, plus trying to remember all the things that you have said and they have said to keep track of all these things. And then if you add the layer of having negotiated with somebody already. So you've used a lot of the tactics that we utilize with people on this person. And were they paying enough attention at that point to be able to counteract

them or call us out on them? It's just like that, it's already a mentally exhausting, for lack of better terms, game that we're playing. But then you add in the fact that someone might know something about you personally. That's incredible. Yeah, and that was why it sticks out. Because when he said it, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. The coach that was with me is a co-worker of mine. And we looked at each other.

And the team commander is a good friend. And we all kind of looked at each other and went, like, does he? And the way he said it and the timing that he said it just gave you the hair on the back of your neck. And I remember driving home and, you know, when you've got a two-hour ride home, if not longer, it has its advantages. But it also is the disadvantage of that adrenaline dump from that of like, oh, wow, I'm really exhausted.

Because mentally, I think you're thinking five steps, exactly like you said, Mo, five steps ahead. What's he saying? What they say already? What strategy can I use to try to develop that rapport? Can I get them out? All those things there. It makes for sometimes when a four-hour ride up is long, it's a five-hour ride, it feels like back home.

Yeah, for sure. Did he, did you find that some of the tactics that you would have normally used with him, that you had to alter them, since he had already been negotiated with before? Yeah, you couldn't bullshit him. Like, you know how you can say, well, why don't you just, you know, downplay the seriousness of what they did? It's like, nah, dude, I think we tried that at first, and you could tell right away he knew, because you guys tried that before, and it led to a just, all right,

man, like, you shot at this car, you hit somebody, like. Yeah, you're under arrest. Like, you got to come out. Like, wouldn't you guys beat me up last time? Yeah, that's because you didn't, you know. So you can play off of that. But at the same point, I think it made it harder in the trying to bring him to a rational state when he's already been there before. And I talked to the other negotiator who had negotiated with him after,

and he said he did the exact same thing to him last time. Like, you thought you had him. He was going to come out, and then he'd flip, and you'd start back at square one. and you just went around and around that circle. That's wild. Yeah. That's a very interesting one because of all those layers, I definitely have to say. Tyler, anything? No, I'm trying to, you know what, we have a little bit of time.

I want to get one more of your stories in, but I'm still kind of, sorry, that kind of took me a little bit, Chris, because I'm like, dude, I've, never had something that quite specific, but, you know, fuck you, I'm going to come after you and your family. It's very vague and I'm like, this motherfucker, I don't know shit. But if they or to like, if I want to come for your son and your daughter, I don't know that I'd have the same composure, but I understand what you guys are saying.

Yeah. Yeah, I think that was the hardest part for me was to not try to feed into it, just to not even acknowledge it. Like, just play it off, because I didn't want him to think it, one, if he did know, I didn't want him to let know it affected me, and two, if he didn't know, I didn't want to give him something that would indicate that I did have two kids. yeah sure,

Jesus, I'm just listening to stuff. I'm like, no wonder. I think it's great that negotiators are doing some mental health checks or mental wellness checks. Sorry, we got one more. I want to get one of your stories in. I appreciate it. I'm loving it. No worries. No worries. For me, one that I can think of that stands out for me was probably I'd been on the negotiator team for a little bit. And I remember this was one where I had to drive a whole hour and a half running

lights and sirens. And so I was like, this is a lot when I got there. We get set up. It's a guy that has barricaded himself in, for us, it was one of our little crappy motels. And he was, it was way out on the east side in like the Ruskin area, if you're familiar with the area at all. There was a little, it was like a little, almost like a Motel 6 type hotel. But it was a very old, rundown version of that hotel. So it wasn't the Motel 6.

Because I don't want Motel 6 to be coming after us talking about your bad talking. us. He's in this hotel and he was barricaded just, he barricaded just himself, but imagine we had to evacuate the hotel because there was like eight other rooms. And it was one of those where there's homeless people that are living there for their time that they can afford to pay for. You got prostitutes, you have, like, this is the clientele that they're dealing with. And he's barricaded himself in there.

I remember the district that we were in, it was a major that was pretty outspoken. And when we got there, we're all assembled. We start talking to him. And he came up and he's like, what is this guy saying he's going to do? And I was a fairly new negotiator and I was on Intel at the time. And I'm like, yes, sir. So he's barricaded in the room and he said he's going to blow the place up. And he goes, he's going to do what?

I was like, he said he's going to blow it up. He's like, they don't have the mental fortitude or the materials out here for anybody to blow anything up. We get there and we're negotiating with this guy And you got the pressure of the major who literally was over it From the time he got there because he thought we were wasting his time We eventually did get him to come out and surrender to SWAT And when they went in, of course, the unsaid major says So, did you find bombs in there?

I mean, we had to take it serious because we didn't know, you know, whether or not he did or didn't. And who knows if he did, he might not be able to blow up this classy motel. And we don't want that to happen. Human me for Tuesday. And if you were there or know the story better, then let me know. But it was during my time. And in that same major, there was another barricaded subject. But it was like an older son with his family and he had a knife or something like that.

And nobody wanted to go in. negotiators were trying to negotiate it out kind of like what you suggested it was going on for maybe an hour, two hours and the major goes, fuck it, I'm done with this he also had a false tooth Chris, and he took his tooth out put it in his pocket, which is what he would do walks up to the door, says some words, smacks the knife out of the kid's hand, and then brings him back out and he was like, alright, now we're done, he puts his tooth back in

and drives away, and I'm like, holy shit, well, no, it's funny you remember the first negotiation I talked about yes That was it, The negotiation didn't go on for an hour We had just got there Oh my god, it's so good From the time we got there He assembled like three people Three of his guys that would follow him And he did just that And went up and we were like.

I guess that's what we're doing We hadn't been that long I remember going forward With my, like I said, I had to go forward And the time that I went to go forward He came shortly thereafter for me when I once I got there. I got one more. Just to lay this guy explained. So you got to explain major. So like he's running the district and somebody was talking bad to his secretary or like the front.

I can't remember. It was like a civil civilian, not a deputy, but they were yelling loud enough that he could hear it from the major's office. He comes out. This is a major, mind you. Comes out from around his office. Was like, what's going on? The dude starts yelling at him. He slams him on the ground, handcuffs him, calls his lieutenant and goes, arrest him. And they're like, for what, sir? He goes, I don't know. Figure it out. He ain't going to be acting like that in my district.

Fuck, I'm sorry. So good. I know that first call I talked to him at the prison. We had a major show up. I'll never forget this. So our tactical team was commanded by the supervisor of the whole incident would be the tactical team commander who had a rank of sergeant. The major showed up and says, you know, it's been going on long enough. You're going to end it in this amount of time. The said supervisor of the tactical team at the time says something along the

lines of, yeah, you're not going to tell me what to do. You can leave. Turns around, walks away. And then we went for like another two and a half, three hours with this guy.

And he tried to talk the supervisor after and he looked at the major and goes yeah no we're done and just kept walking right by him so you have majors that just go up we have others you know supervisors that are just like yeah no and yes the rank was a sergeant telling a major yeah no so, yeah we did I love it it's so good, we got like nine minutes go ahead, I probably should have asked him earlier in the recording, but I wanted to just

get an idea because I know when me and my husband were talking about what drove us to be a negotiator, we had very differing stories. So I was curious, why did you want to get into negotiations? I like the challenge of talking to people. I'm not a very outgoing person per se. Maybe it's, I don't know, this line makes it that way. But I actually like the ability to kind of talk to people and talk.

Figure out what's making them tick, almost like the why are they doing this, and then seeing if you can get them to, you know, rationalize a little bit. So I looked at it as that was one. And two, you know, in this line of work, we say, oh, hey, we want to help people, and yada, yada, yada. But nine times out of ten, we know all we're doing is putting, you know, Band-Aids on holes where we're trying to prevent further crime.

But those in crisis, and I feel like I should talk to more suicidal people Did I have anything else? Is, hey, maybe I can get one of these suicidal people to not kill themselves. Sounds kind of, you know, oh, I want to help somebody. But I looked at it. Well, if I could talk to somebody in a challenging way, this is a good skill that I can use to have that drive, but then use it, those skills learned. It really used those skills learned to better my career.

Was the finals, like, strong, those things roped in, and then I looked at what you needed to be a negotiator, and I kind of wanted to be honest, and the way to do it is, you know, you gotta be able to interview and talk to people, so what better way than yourself in a situation where you gotta, talk to a guy with, you know, wants to eat a gun, or wants to jump off a bridge, or wants to hurt somebody else and doesn't want to come out of that, so that was all those rolling in.

Right. I get it. I get it. I think you kind of encompass both of what me and my husband, my husband was saying that, you know, because he was shy, that was why he got into it. And I liked the mental chess game that it really is. Yeah. The mental chess game for me was the most rewarding of, can I, can I joke that I could talk to a crazy, you know, mentally unstable, barricaded felon out of a house but I can't talk to my wife and my, 10-year-old daughter at the time out of their room.

So I said, yeah, I'll take the challenge of going to a rain deal with this. At least maybe these skills will apply at my house, but I've learned they don't. No? I've learned, don't you negotiate with me. Okay, well, you know.

Exactly. Tyler I'll throw it back to you if there's something you have any final thoughts, no I just I really appreciate it and you know I love hearing this stuff because for me it's like the challenge thing you know actually we've got a couple minutes just the only thing is so on the Fed side you do a lot of tests and you know emotional maturity like it's all this like what kind of personality are you what kind of leader are you you know it's it's

those kind of tests and I don't have them off the top of my head but, There was, it's like a 500 question test that you take and you have based on the answers, they generate a score and they use it to try to explain like, hey, this is who you are in your private life. This is who you are in your work life.

And they explain that, you know, if you're on opposite ends of the spectrum, like you're very reserved, you're very quiet, you know, you prefer to be, you know, introvert, I guess I'll just use that word. But then at work, you're forced to pretty much be an extrovert and you're put into like a commanding position where typically if you're at home or by yourself, you like to just kind of go along to get along more passive, you know, just like agreeable.

But then, you know, you do a job like law enforcement. It makes you very authoritative. You have to make fucking decisions, some of them in high stress environments. And that could be extremely exhausting. Whereas sometimes there's people who have personalities that they're very, they're very dominant in their personal life and in their work life.

It's a lot easier to transition mentally. and it goes into a bunch of other stuff i'm not trying to bore it but you know there's analytical mind there's different things you know the people who like to look at spreadsheets and do all that that's a different kind of person than the someone who likes to draw and you know take pictures of the sky you know whatever it's like that mine was complete opposite ends of the spectrum

which is surprising to most people because i'm like no individually in my own life like i like to like read a book relax you know i just kind of go along to get along but at work which is where most people know me they're like dude you're very like dominating you like you I'm like, that's because that's who I feel like I need to be. Someone's got to make a fucking decision. And I used to wonder, because when I first started, I was like, I'm fucking exhausted.

And it's because you're having to shift your mind so far from who you, I guess, identify that it drains you. So hearing you guys talk through these things, I'm like, that shit sounds exhausting to me. But I'm also very interested and fascinated by it. That's funny. It could be at times. Yeah. It could be, but at the same time, I think it was also a huge adrenaline rush.

It's getting that guy to come out and get into custody and know that it's because you talked him into those handcuffs is a super adrenaline rush, too. Huge adrenaline rush. I remember when we'd start talking and you'd think the person was coming out, my heart would start to beat. I'd be like, okay, all right. So that rollercoaster ride of thinking they're coming out and then they don't come out. but thinking they're coming out like it, it's a huge adrenaline rush.

No, perfect. Well, listen guys, I appreciate it. I want to respect you guys' time, but I really appreciate this. And Chris, uh, we talked about it. I don't want to allude too much to it, but I look forward to having you on again and getting into some more stuff. No, I, I appreciate the invite and it's always fun to, to talk to you. And well, it was nice to, nice to talk to you. And Kyle, this is what happens when you put two negotiators talking together. you probably can go for like

another two hours at the rate we're going. Oh, easy. That's why I love it, though. I love it. All right, guys. I appreciate it. Thanks for letting me pick your brain. Anytime. Thanks, and stay safe down there in Florida. You too. Music.