Monday, June 20, 2016

When active-shooter event became hostage situation, police made tough call



Dawn was nearing, and police had a tough decision to make. They faced a terrorist holding hostages in a bathroom. He’d shown a willingness to slaughter innocent people. An unknown number were dead or dying inside Orlando’s Pulse nightclub.

Negotiations by phone with the gunman, Omar Mateen, had gotten nowhere.

“He really wasn’t asking for a whole lot, and we were doing most of the asking,” Orlando Police Chief John Mina said Monday...

“There was a timeline given, and we believed that there was imminent loss of life that we needed to prevent,” Mina said. “It’s a tough decision to make knowing that people’s lives will be placed in danger by that, our officers’ lives would be placed in danger.”

Gary Noesner, the retired chief of the FBI negotiation unit and author of “Stalling For Time: My Life As An FBI Hostage Negotiator,” said authorities face a tricky situation when a gunman is determined to die: “If they obviously don’t want to live, the most clever phraseology in negotiations are not going to get you the outcome you want.”

Read more from the WashingtonPost.com [HERE].