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Special police team resolves crisis situations with negotiation
By Xie Zuocan and Xu Wei |
October 25, 2010, Monday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
THE recent Philippine hostage-taking incident in Manila triggered widespread public debate of police methods in hostage situations. Manila law-enforcement officials were blamed for failing to deploy hostage negotiations experts in resolving the crisis without bloodshed.
The Jiading District is better prepared. It has a crisis negotiation police team. Over the past two years, it has successfully solved more than 30 complicated cases of hostage-taking and threatened suicide attempts. Shen Shiying, the first female director of the Jiading District Police Station, leads this special force.
When the force was formed, one of its first crises it faced was a hostage-taking incident near one of the Anting highway tollgates on the Shanghai-Nanjing Expressway. At the time, Shen had just had dinner and was driving her daughter to visit her in-laws.
The case unfolded like this.
A local mother had just picked up her 12-year-old son from school and was driving him home when a man jumped into the back seat of their car at an intersection, put a knife to the boy's neck and told the mother to drive on. The man, named Qiangzi, was distraught because he had piled up big gambling debts and his wife had left him.
After driving around terror-struck for a while, the boy's mother, caused a rear-end collision at the Anting highway tollgates. She jumped out of the car to summon police.
At the sight of law-enforcement officers, Qiangzi stabbed the boy in the arm to show that he was serious. "No car will move if this car doesn't move," he shouted. "Otherwise, I will stab the boy every 10 seconds."
A traffic jam quickly formed on the Anting exit of the expressway. Then, suddenly, a woman clad in civilian clothes appeared in front of the half-opened window of the back seat of the car. She stared at Qiangzi, and then smiled. He saw kindness in her eyes. The woman was Shen Shiying.
"Can I help you? I know you must have your reasons ..." Shen said, trying to ease the tension.
Deadlock
Negotiation was under way. Shen and her colleagues knew that the boy's life would be in bigger threat if they couldn't persuade Qiangzi to get out of the car as soon as possible. The suspect demanded food and water. The deadlock situation started to ease. The police gave Qiangzi water and bread.
Meanwhile, Qiangzi also demanded shark-fin soup and that street lights be switched off. While negotiating with him, Shen tried to observe the situation inside the car. All of the car's doors were locked but the windows were semi-open. She saw that she could reach the window control buttons to open the doors. She bided her time for the right moment.
When the young boy, who had been forced to lie on the floor, was allowed to sit up and take water, the moment had arrived to put a hastily devised rescue plan into action.
With Shen to divert the hostage-taker, her colleagues quietly moved to the car's two back doors. A policeman stretched his hand into the car and found the control button, which was hidden from the suspect's view by the back of the passenger seat.
All of a sudden, everything sprung into action. The button was pushed. The police created a noise diversion while one officer quickly grabbed the suspect's right hand and seized his left hand which was holding the knife before he was aware what had happened. The boy was quickly rescued and moved to an ambulance.
Jiading District decided in May 2008 to form a crisis negotiation police team. Five law-enforcement officials passed interviews with experts from the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Public Security and the Shanghai Public Security College. Shen is the only female on the team. She is a qualified psychologist and has extensive experience in crisis negotiation.
To date, Shen has led her negotiation team in 34 crisis incidents, including the situation of a migrant worker who threatened to jump to his death if he couldn't get a salary dispute resolved. Another man, who just broke up with his girl friend, threatened to commit suicide.
"Negotiation is a process of communication," Shen says. "Learning to communicate with people is the first step to solving a crisis."
The Jiading District is better prepared. It has a crisis negotiation police team. Over the past two years, it has successfully solved more than 30 complicated cases of hostage-taking and threatened suicide attempts. Shen Shiying, the first female director of the Jiading District Police Station, leads this special force.
When the force was formed, one of its first crises it faced was a hostage-taking incident near one of the Anting highway tollgates on the Shanghai-Nanjing Expressway. At the time, Shen had just had dinner and was driving her daughter to visit her in-laws.
The case unfolded like this.
A local mother had just picked up her 12-year-old son from school and was driving him home when a man jumped into the back seat of their car at an intersection, put a knife to the boy's neck and told the mother to drive on. The man, named Qiangzi, was distraught because he had piled up big gambling debts and his wife had left him.
After driving around terror-struck for a while, the boy's mother, caused a rear-end collision at the Anting highway tollgates. She jumped out of the car to summon police.
At the sight of law-enforcement officers, Qiangzi stabbed the boy in the arm to show that he was serious. "No car will move if this car doesn't move," he shouted. "Otherwise, I will stab the boy every 10 seconds."
A traffic jam quickly formed on the Anting exit of the expressway. Then, suddenly, a woman clad in civilian clothes appeared in front of the half-opened window of the back seat of the car. She stared at Qiangzi, and then smiled. He saw kindness in her eyes. The woman was Shen Shiying.
"Can I help you? I know you must have your reasons ..." Shen said, trying to ease the tension.
Deadlock
Negotiation was under way. Shen and her colleagues knew that the boy's life would be in bigger threat if they couldn't persuade Qiangzi to get out of the car as soon as possible. The suspect demanded food and water. The deadlock situation started to ease. The police gave Qiangzi water and bread.
Meanwhile, Qiangzi also demanded shark-fin soup and that street lights be switched off. While negotiating with him, Shen tried to observe the situation inside the car. All of the car's doors were locked but the windows were semi-open. She saw that she could reach the window control buttons to open the doors. She bided her time for the right moment.
When the young boy, who had been forced to lie on the floor, was allowed to sit up and take water, the moment had arrived to put a hastily devised rescue plan into action.
With Shen to divert the hostage-taker, her colleagues quietly moved to the car's two back doors. A policeman stretched his hand into the car and found the control button, which was hidden from the suspect's view by the back of the passenger seat.
All of a sudden, everything sprung into action. The button was pushed. The police created a noise diversion while one officer quickly grabbed the suspect's right hand and seized his left hand which was holding the knife before he was aware what had happened. The boy was quickly rescued and moved to an ambulance.
Jiading District decided in May 2008 to form a crisis negotiation police team. Five law-enforcement officials passed interviews with experts from the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Public Security and the Shanghai Public Security College. Shen is the only female on the team. She is a qualified psychologist and has extensive experience in crisis negotiation.
To date, Shen has led her negotiation team in 34 crisis incidents, including the situation of a migrant worker who threatened to jump to his death if he couldn't get a salary dispute resolved. Another man, who just broke up with his girl friend, threatened to commit suicide.
"Negotiation is a process of communication," Shen says. "Learning to communicate with people is the first step to solving a crisis."
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