‘Hearing them out’: Active-listening; remaining calm, keys to crisis and hostage negotiation; class held at the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy in December

When it comes to crisis and hostage negotiation for law enforcement, it takes a team.

"I believe that it's a team effort, no one person is responsible for a win or loss in a negotiation," said Kimberlee Thetford, a 13-year peace officer for the Lubbock Police Department who taught Crisis and Hostage Negotiation Training at the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy December 15-19. "There's not just one person talking to them. There's a whole bunch of people working in the background to make sure that the communications goes as smoothly and efficiently as possible.

"If managed appropriately to slow things down, hostage and crisis negotiation is very beneficial to the entire community. When we slow everything down, we have more time to make the best decisions and look for alternative peaceful solutions."

Kimberlee Thetford, a 13-year peace officer for the Lubbock Police Department taught Crisis and Hostage Negotiation Training at the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy December 15-19.

The class, which is voluntary, had not only law enforcement students but also mental health professionals.

"I hope that they gain some of the basic foundational knowledge for crisis and hostage negotiation so that they can begin their careers as members of negotiation teams and seek out additional training and knowledge," said Thetford of the 24 students. "Some people are naturally inclined towards it. If you have a desire to be on a crisis and hostage negotiation team but are lacking in ability you can learn it."

The class discusses the foundation of negotiation, getting into specifically active listening skills, rapport building, empathizing and the behavioral change stairway model developed by the FBI, before transitioning to more specialized topics like how to care for your team (team selection, how to debrief) and what gear can help you be successful.

Books and other training materials for the Crisis and Hostage Negotiation Training held at the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy December 15-19.

"I think that this a good opportunity for networking with all these students with different experiences in hostage negotiation, patrol and detectives," said Thetford, who has 11 years of crisis and hostage negotiation experience including several major call-outs such as a 32-hour incident, one involving the death of an officer, one involving the death of a child and people barricading themselves after those events occurred. "Each person has different opinions, perspectives that can help communicate with others; not everyone is going to want to talk to a female or male or someone with long-term experience or short-term experience or a military background. It's going to be different for everyone.

"I teach these classes because I also learn from the students. They are in various points in their career and I love learning from them and taking that back to my team."

One of the most critical points in the class and the very first slide in the presentation is focused around self-control; maintaining composure and being calm in the face of a difficult situation.

Crisis and Hostage Negotiation Training held at the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy December 15-19.

"If we don't have control over our own emotions we cannot impact or influence the behavior of other people," said Thetford. "I typically try not to get super amped up about going to these types of events. They are the worst of the worst - extremely difficult. I try really hard to stay cool and calm and clear-headed so I can make objective decisions based on the information that's been given to us. If I am too excited or too emotional then they feed off of that and then we'll have this competition of who can be more elevated than the other. Whenever I am calm then people will model that behavior and that's what we want.

"Most of the time, just giving them time and space to feel what they feel and talk about what they've experienced has been most helpful to negotiators - that we give them a platform to talk about stuff and not feel judged for it. Because in their daily life they don't get that opportunity. People either tell them how to fix their problems or don't listen to them, blow them off and then they feel undervalued or not respected but when we can give them that, it allows them to come from that elevated emotional spot back down to a more rational spot.

"This isn't about us, it's about them, so in order to establish credibility with them and build rapport we might tell them a little bit of basic information about ourselves but then we will bring the conversation back to them."

Group shot of students at Crisis and Hostage Negotiation Training held at the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy December 15-19.

Story and photos by New Mexico Department of Public Safety Public Information Officer John Heil.