Hostage & Crisis Negotiators: Nonverbal Communication Basics

The appearance of the
negotiator matters.

Learn the skills used by these expert negotiators and how it can help you.

Nonverbal communication plays an important role during hostage and crisis situations involving law enforcement personnel.  Nonverbal communication is not limited to solely “body language” but rather includes a variety of other elements.  To raise awareness of the numerous nonverbal communication elements that are possibly present during an interaction, I created the METTA acronym (movement,environment, touch, tone, and appearance) during my doctoral research on nonverbal communication and mediators.

Journalist recalls her kidnapping, torture, rape; yet forgives Jihadist captors

Amanda Lindhout in Somalia
Photo credit: Canadian Press

Canadian freelance journalist Amanda Lindhout has written a book about her traumatic 15 months in captivity, and the torture she endured at the hands of a gang of Muslim teenagers in Somalia in 2008.

What Is Stockholm Syndrome?

BBC.com- Forty years ago, the term Stockholm Syndrome was coined at the end of a six-day bank siege. What is it and why is it cited time and again in hostage situations?

Most people know the phrase Stockholm Syndrome from the numerous high-profile kidnapping and hostage cases - usually involving women - in which it has been cited.

Responses to Crisis: Antionette Tuff and Superman

One bookkeeper’s calm, cool demeanor
saved the lives of countless kids.
Image by shaka

Calm, cool, emotionally intelligent–all of those adjectives describe Antoinette Tuff’s response to the troubled man who intended to shoot up Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy, an elementary school in Decatur, Georgia, August 20, 2013.

Rescuing Hostages- Terrorism Has Evolved

Photo: IDF Spokesperson

Three o'clock in the morning at the Ono Academic College in Kiryat-Ono. Throughout the daytime, students study here to become lawyers and business executives, but at night, the people here deal with something entirely different: rescuing hostages who have the barrels of AK assault rifles pressed to their heads and explosive vests strapped to their bodies. The buildings of the college become a makeshift training ground for the IDF Counterterrorism unit, Lotar.

No Ransom, No Release for Hostages of Somali Pirates

Suspected pirates keep their hands in the air as directed by sailors aboard
the guided-missile cruiser USS Vella Gulf (CG 72) (not shown), in the Gulf
of Aden, February 11, 2009.

NAIROBI — In recent months the number of pirate attacks along Somalia’s coast has dropped, but an estimated 97 seafarers remain in the hands of pirates.  Many of these hostages are uninsured and negotiations for their release have come to a standstill.

PACT Crisis & Hostage Negotiation Trainings

 A full listing of the upcoming trainings in crisis negotiation provided by PATC (Public Agency Training Council) is [HERE].

11-hour bank stand-off leaves two hostages shot and killer dead

An armed siege at a bank in north-eastern Louisiana came to a bloody conclusion as a gunman shot two hostages, killing one, before being shot dead himself by armed police.

Yonkers hostage negotiator talks vet into surrender after shots fired

“We don’t rush,” Hodges said. “We talked to him to get him out of the house peacefully.”