DENNIS FLYNN
WHEN DEALING WITH A HOSTAGE SITUATION, HOW DO YOU BEST COMMUNICATE WITH SOMEONE WHO IS FAR BEYOND THE POINT OF RATIONALISATION? HOSTAGE NEGOTIATOR DENNIS FLYNN EXPLAINS
In recent months, Las Vegas has been the setting for a number of critical situations: In October 2017, Stephen Paddock took to the 32nd floor of Las Vegas’ Mandalay Bay Hotel, barricaded himself inside and gunned down dozens of people attending a concert below, before fatally shooting himself. In May 2018, negotiations for the life of a hostage in Henderson led to the arrest of 30-year-old wanted fugitive David Nguyn, after he barricaded himself inside a residence on Mira Montana Street, near Highway 95 and Galleria Drive. Thousands of situations like these arise every year in the state of Nevada alone – who deals with them?
Surprisingly, it is not just the job of the police, but a team of civilian volunteers, mental health professionals and police, known as crisis negotiators, or hostage negotiators. For more than half of his three-decade career with the Las Vegas Police Department, Dennis Flynn, author of Held Hostage, put his talking and listening skills to the test as he embarked on more than 1,000 different incidents, including bridge jumpers, suicidal barricaders and hostage negotiations, as part of the city’s Crisis Negotiation Team. It is these tense negotiations and heart-wrenching events that the former commander of the Las Vegas Police robbery division says have kept him from his family during holidays, birthdays and anniversaries, and have opened up his eyes to the realities of the human psyche and the most tragic and unfair events life has to offer.
Some people assume being a hostage negotiator is about going in all guns blazing, that’s not true though, is it?
It’s completely the opposite. ‘Hostage negotiation’ sounds sexy but it’s really ‘crisis negotiation’, because that’s what we do. The last thing you want to do with someone who is despondent is push their back up against the wall and make them feel like they’ve got no way out. The best study that sums it
