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A shorter version of this article – which won the ASJA Outstanding Article Award for 2004 in the business category – appeared in Jungle Magazine.

LIFE IN THE BALANCE
by Anita Bartholomew

Think negotiating a merger or a bigger paycheck is nerve-wracking? Try haggling with a terrorist — or with someone about to kill himself.

SUICIDE HOTLINE: SHIFT THE PERSPECTIVE

“A man named Jim called from the outskirts of a town on the Mojave Desert,” says Chris Neame(caller's name and other identifying information have been changed to protect privacy).

“He said he was sitting in a hotel room. He had a gun on the table. And he was going to shoot himself.”

Neame is a volunteer crisis counselor at the Suicide Prevention Center of the Didi Hirsch Community Mental Health Center in Los Angeles. It’s one of about 300 such centers that take calls through the nationwide 24-hour hotline, 1-800-SUICIDE. Neame, a former stage actor who speaks in a soothing British-accented baritone, got his crisis counseling training from the Samaritans in London where he volunteered for five years. He’s been with the L.A. center for eight years.

He says that some callers simply need comfort, advice and referrals for therapy. “Jim,” however, is obviously in imminent danger.

It’s up to Neame to negotiate with Jim for Jim’s own life. If he says the wrong thing, or simply fails to say the right thing, Jim may put down the phone and pick up the gun.

“What I’ve always tried to do with my clients, if I can, is try to find something to latch onto, one little ray of light and really expand on it.” explains Neame. “Keep after that thing and keep talking about that thing.”

But Neame knows nothing about the caller or his reasons for wanting to end his life.

“I said, ‘Jim, tell me what’s going on.’” And the man at the other end of the phone line spills his despair into the receiver, somehow able to confide in a stranger about things he didn’t feel he could tell those close to him. His wife, he said, couldn’t have sex any more; something had gone wrong during a surgical procedure on her vagina. Frustrated, Jim started going to prostitutes. He’d gotten caught in a police sting. He would have to go to court. And he was terrified that his wife and children would find out, and he would lose them all.

But the reason Jim gives for wanting to kill himself – worry that he’ll lose the love of those most important to him – is also the clue to saving him. Neame starts asking about Jim’s family, encouraging him to share anecdotes about happy moments.

As Jim talks about his daughters, Neame notices a gradual change. “He started to get softer… He started crying.”

The tears don’t alarm Neame, who has learned that this is a sign of release. And with release of the built-up tension, comes an opening to get a caller to listen to reason. “I could say, because he was very vulnerable then, ‘Jim, please, would you just take the gun and put in the drawer by the bedside table? Think of your children.’”

Jim agrees to do as Neame asks. But Neame can’t assume his caller is out of danger. He has to get Jim to tell him his location so the police can come and, if necessary, take him to a hospital.

No police, insists Jim. The notion of cops descending on this hotel room probably brings back the shame and fear of being caught up in the prostitution sting.

Rather than directly countering Jim’s objections, Neame follows the strategy that has worked so far, re-focusing his caller on the ray of light in what Jim sees as otherwise bleak terrain. Neame suggests that Jim try going to therapy with his wife, and points out that getting help for himself will help his family too.

He tries again for an address, reassuring the distressed man that the cops aren’t going to arrest him or embarrass him. “They’re just going to assess you, that’s all they’re going to do. If they feel you should go to hospital for treatment there then they’ll take you,” Neame recalls saying. This time, Jim says okay and gives his location. Neame stays on the line with him until help arrives.When trying to get suicidal people to see alternatives to their worst case scenario assumptions, Neame says it’s important to avoid getting all “Mary Poppins about it.” He counters the negative thinking that leads to desperation with suggestions anchored in reality. And he guides callers to programs that promise continuing improvement – such as therapy and twelve-step programs.

Focus on the positive but keep it real. In most cases, that paves the way to an agreement to accept help.

POLICE CRISIS NEGOTIATION: THERE'S ONLY ONE WAY OUT
The heir to the DuPont Chemical Company’s fortunes, John E. duPont, had long run a training camp on his 800-acre estate in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, where professional wrestlers lived and prepared for competitions. But after his mother died in the late 1980s, duPont began behaving bizarrely. According to a Washington Post article, he complained that the trees on his property were somehow mechanized and moving around. He had razor wire installed inside the attic of his home to protect him from those he suspected were trying to break in and kill him.

One January afternoon in 1996, duPont, then-56, drove up to his wrestling facility, stopped in the driveway in front of Olympic champion David Schultz, pulled out a .44 magnum revolver and, without apparent reason, shot Schultz. The grey-bearded eccentric then sped off to his mansion, re-loaded his gun, and barricaded himself inside.

Police, summoned by Schultz’s wife, demanded his surrender. DuPont refused.

"The officers did not want to approach because they were not sure what they were dealing with," says Robert Ewing, one of a team of police negotiators who had been called to the scene. "You don't want to come in there with a SWAT team and possibly get somebody shot. You try to talk the guy out."

Negotiators tried to reason with duPont on the phone; he ordered them off his estate. "Sometimes he would make comments that he's the Dalai Lama," recalls Ewing. But Ewing didn’t believe duPont was completely delusional, “because in other instances he would be asking for people that he knew,” Ewing says. “There was no doubt the man had psychiatric problems. But I don’t think his problems were such that he didn’t know who he was or what he was doing.”

The problem for negotiators was that duPont couldn’t seem to grasp that they weren’t going to let him control the situation. They had to “bring him back down to reality,” says Ewing. “We’re here and we’re not going away. That’s reality.”

They pointed out the police cars, the floodlights they’d set up to light the area as the standoff proceeded into the night. Ewing recalls pressing the same message, over and over again. "There is no other way out. Do what we say and we’ll guarantee that you’re going to be okay." duPont responded with more demands that they leave – and that they turn off their lights.

Meanwhile, other members of the negotiation team gathered intelligence about duPont from talking to people who knew him. "It lets you know what kinds of conversations to have with him."

And part of effective crisis negotiation is knowing what not to say; they did not tell duPont that Schultz had died. "We didn't want him to fear that he was also facing a homicide charge and wouldn't come out for that reason."

The first step in any police negotiation, says Ewing, is to calm the person down. Ask what the police can do to help. Find out if there are any small concessions the police can make to gain the person's trust that won't affect the outcome. Let him know there is only one way out.

"There has to be a show of force. He has to see that there are people out there in SWAT uniforms and they're ready to get him. And he's not going to be able to escape. So he has to deal with us.

"We don't necessarily have to mention that there's a SWAT team but he definitely has to be able to see it,”Ewing explains. "You have to let somebody know that there's definitely risk in their behavior. And you're the way out of that risk. They have to go through you."

He says it’s rare for a trapped desperado to make the kinds of demands seen in the movies, such as asking for a helicopter and a million dollars. Says Ewing. "For the short term, there might be a lot of bravado. The person might say, 'You're not going to take me,' or 'I'm not coming out,' or 'Come get me.' And then you just sort of wait him out and eventually, he's going to realize, you know, this is stupid. Then they start to talk about how they're going to come out safely." Most situations end within a few hours. But duPont was the exception. He still raved at them from inside his mansion well into the second day, and wouldn’t budge. Ewing and the other negotiators decided to ratchet up the pressure.

“It’s not something you want to do right away because you don’t know how he’s going to react. But if you’re not getting a response then sometimes you have to take certain actions.”

On the freezing January evening, they turned off duPont’s heating system. When the millionaire murderer left his house to see what had gone wrong with it, police grabbed him. The stand-off, which had lasted about 48 hours, was over John E. duPont was tried for Schultz’s murder, found guilty but mentally ill, and sentenced to up to 40 years in prison. Ewing, who had been both a patrolman and an attorney at the time of the duPont case, left the force in 1999 to practice law full-time. He says that some of what he learned as a police negotiator applies in his practice.

"You have to make certain demands, let people know you're willing to back it up. And subtly, calmly, you eventually wear somebody down."

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