SPOKANE -- When a gunman takes hostages and faces off against police, officers and those victims may have just one chance at a peaceful surrender. They turn to hostage negotiators. They are a select few in Spokane's Police force. The entire negotiating team is always on call. No matter what, when the SWAT team is called out, negotiators need to be ready to talk someone down from death.
In one incident, an armed felon threatens police from inside a room at a Ramada Inn on the north side of Spokane. The standoff begins when convict Jeremy Hanson refuses to leave the hotel. He has taken his girlfriend and her child and would not let them out the front door. Their lives are in the hands of hostage negotiator Sandi McIntyre.
McIntyre pleads with Hanson to release the six year old girl and her mother. The mother grabs the phone and begs for her life.
"Your brain is going 100 m.p.h. because you're trying to figure out what am I going to do," reflects McIntyre.
McIntyre knows saying the wrong thing could set Hanson off.
"Just the matter of a word, sometimes it's just a word and it changes the whole scenario," said McIntyre.
The standoff went well into the night. It took three negotiators 15 hours to bring everyone out safely. They effectively wore Hanson down. The child came first, then Hanson's girlfriend. All this after Hanson fired his gun at the door. No one was hurt.
Negotiators get into a slew of unpredictable situations. A gunman in a standoff in 2003 poked his head out of a house roof and started yelling at police. Spokane police officer Tim Moses says negotiating with that suspect was not pleasant.
"There was a lot of cussing, anger, we were challenging one another," remembers Moses.
Tense negotiating conversations are helped out by a backup officer who is in a R.V. The main negotiator meets with the backup officer in the R.V. from time to time so they can keep each other focused.
"They'll be sitting here with a pad of paper going ask about his, remember he said this and we'll go back and visit that point," said Moses.
The rest of the nine member team is also in the R.V., investigating the gunman's background to help the negotiator learn more about who they are dealing with. Negotiators rely heavily on that information.
A standoff spans several hours. The longest in recent years was 14 hours. When cell phones die, negotiators provide the gunman a phone. When all else fails, they can depend on their own equipment. They have 1,000 feet of wire connected to a throw phone. It is a secure line with the subject.
The negotiating team has a high rate of success. In the last 12 years, Moses says no hostages or officers have been hurt. Most of the time the standoff ends peacefully. A few times a gunman has turned the weapon on himself. Those actions are out of a negotiators control. They try not to take it personally.
Despite the stress, McIntyre and Moses love their job. In fact, it is highly sought after in the police department. when a spot opens up, only someone with at least three years experience can even apply. It is a spot McIntyre and Moses do not want to give up.
