Denton County Sheriff's Investigator Jeff Davis lay hidden in the back seat of a car for hours, advising a terrified mother on how to talk to a man on the phone who said he'd kidnapped her daughter and would kill her if a $100,000 ransom were not paid.
The kidnapper kept changing locations, and Davis relayed the next meeting place to a SWAT team poised to catch him. Other members of the hostage and crisis negotiation team were talking to other family members and analyzing all the intelligence in teamwork that eventually resulted in the safe rescue of the daughter and the arrest of three men.
That intense, dangerous situation in 2008 is an example of the way hostage and crisis teams are supposed to work, Davis said. And the teamwork the group from the Denton County Sheriff's Office used that day is an example of the kind of work that recently won the team a prestigious third-place win in a nationwide contest. Their competitors included 24 teams of negotiators, many of whom come from large departments that train and work full time in crisis negotiation.
Davis is the team leader of the group. This year, the team dedicated their efforts to the memory of Sheriff's Investigator Guy Williamson, who died in December. He was a longtime negotiator with both the sheriff's office and earlier in his career with the Denton police, and he was a board member of the Texas Association of Hostage Negotiators.
"We lost Guy, and he was on our minds throughout the competition," Davis said. "It was special, and we were glad we did so well for him."
The sheriff's team has competed for 10 years, but this was the first time members have placed, he said.
In addition to Davis, members include two assistant team leaders: Patrol Lt. Jose Pena and Investigator Larry Kish. Patrol Sgt. Paul Keith is training coordinator, Davis said, and other members are Investigator Pat LeMaire, Investigator James Gibbons, Patrol Cpl. Kelly Fair, Deputy Desi Townsend, Deputy Jerry Yates, Jail Lt. Bruce Elsey and Jail Sgt. Richard Carlson.
The competition took place at Texas State University in San Marcos.
Gainesville police Officer Naji Saleh became part of the team this year because his agency is not large enough to field a team.
Wayman C. Mullins, chairman of the criminal justice department at Texas State and a renowned expert in hostage negotiation, leads the competition with the help of graduate students, Davis said. Mullins is the co-author of the definitive book on the subject, and he devises an eight-hour scenario that tests the teams in every aspect of the specialized training. Expert judges, many of them from FBI hostage negotiation teams, then assign numeric scores for each of 15 aspects to determine the winners.
Sheriff's Capt. Mike Caley supervises the SWAT and Hostage and Crisis Negotiation teams. The two teams work together in situations, and Caley decides when they are needed and who will play the active role at what time. He attended the competition.
"I got very positive feedback while I was watching," he said. "It was 12 or 14 hours of very grueling, stressful work. They told me they had never seen a team work so well together. They did a great job. They represented the county very well."
Davis said the job of the team is to respond to situations where people are in crisis and try to bring the situation to a peaceful end with everyone safe. It could be an actual hostage or kidnapping victim, he said. It might be a situation where someone is in crisis and refuses to come out of a locked or barricaded building. Normally, the person either has committed a crime or is threatening to harm themselves or someone else.
"In a city, it is mostly a barricaded person in a building. But in the county, it's crazy," Davis said. "We responded to a cell tower. We respond to cars on the side of the road. Our goal is to communicate with that person and to come up with a successful, positive end to the incident."
The negotiators sometimes are not successful, he said, and that's where the SWAT team comes in. Caley decides when it's time to change teams.
The cell tower Davis mentioned was a bunker. Men who were trying to steal copper there were discovered by law enforcement. No manner of talking would get them out of the bunker. It took tear gas and a "hard" entry by SWAT team members to resolve the situation.
A few years ago, a man chased his girlfriend in their vehicles and shot her to death. Then he drove to another location and sat in his truck for hours while negotiators tried to talk him out. But the sun came up and people started driving to work and school buses were on their way to pick up children in the neighborhood.
Caley made the decision that the time to talk was done. SWAT members threw a tear gas canister through the truck's window and removed the man before he recovered from the shock.
Often, however, patience and skilled talking works. Each member of the team is different, and that difference might resonate with the person. Female members might work best for female subjects, he said. A member from the northern U.S. might be more welcome to another Northerner. There
are Spanish-speaking team members to handle a language barrier.
"Every word is important," Davis said. "It's not just what you say but how you say it. It takes a special person, and we've got a team of special people.
"It's a team I'm really proud of."
DONNA FIELDER can be reached at 940-566-6885. Her e-mail address is dfielder@dentonrc.com .
