By Kim Hilsenbeck.

This month’s profile of an interesting job includes a group of people who are all on the same team. We talked with the Hays County Hostage Negotiation Team, comprised of mostly law enforcement officers from the Hays County Sheriff’s Office, San Marcos Police and Kyle Police. 

Professor Wayman C. Mullins is a licensed peace officer in Texas and a consultant to law enforcement and correction agencies as well as private businesses. He helped start the Crisis Negotiation Team at Hays County Sheriff’s Office and is still an active member.

Mullins, who co-authored the book “Crisis Negotiations: Managing Critical Incidents and Hostage Situations in Law Enforcement and Corrections,” with Michael McMains, is considered one of the country’s leading experts on hostage negotiations.

Everyone else on the team has “regular” jobs with their respective law enforcement agency. For example, Lt. Jeri Skroki is the supervisor of Public Information at the Hays County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO). Phil Jackson is the mental health officer for the San Marcos Police Department (SMPD). See the call out box (right) for a full list of the team and his or her position.

Their roles on the team vary – each person is cross-trained to perform all of the functions, from being the commander to the primary negotiator to the scribe. And they can all drive the bus.

Wait…what bus?

About six years ago, the Hays County Hostage Negotiation Team purchased a used school bus from the Dripping Springs ISD for $1. That bus now serves as a command post for the team during a hostage crisis situation.

“We designed everything ourselves,” said Sgt. Mike Wood of the HCSO Patrol Division.

The agencies invested about $6,000 to retrofit the bus and create a mobile command center, according to Wood.

They took out the seats and created a command center that includes telephone and computer systems, lights, plus heat and air conditioning, keeping the team out of the elements and away from the curiosity of a nosy public. Cabinets along the side hold supplies such as markers, batteries, battery chargers and paper.

All of the electronic equipment runs off of a generator so they don’t have to keep the bus running while conducting their work. 

Using wireless headsets, negotiators are free to write notes to each other, use a computer or talk on the radio.

“We can talk to any agency with the radios; we have a designated SWAT channel, we can communicate inter-agency with DPS, StarFlight, etc.,” Wood said.

Speaking of SWAT…

The two groups seem to have a good relationship.

“We’re very proud of our relationship with SWAT,” Skroki said. “You’ll find that in some negotiation and teams…” 

Someone else chimed in, “They don’t get along.”

 “You’re competing for activity,” explained Carl Spriegel, Cpl. Detective with SMPD. “[SWAT] has a job that they want to do. They’re professional but they also want to use the skills that they’re trained to use and we’re there…” he paused and smiled. “It steals some of the thunder from them.”

This brought a round of laughter from the group. 

But Skroki brought the conversation back to a more serious note.

“I have to put these guys in situations where it’s a face-to-face negotiation. They all have to wear their protective gear,” Skroki said.

She gestured toward Spriegel who was seated next to the table where Skroki was standing.

“But if I’ve got Carl standing there negotiating with a guy with a gun, Carl can’t stand there with a gun in his hand,” she said. “Carl has to know and believe that the SWAT guys and the snipers coverage have his life in their hands.”

“He doesn’t move from wherever he’s at,” said Sgt. Steve Cunningham with the HCSO Patrol Division.

 Skroki said they pride themselves on having absolute trust in the SWAT team. 

“I remember calls where I heard, ‘Jeri, do not move. I’ve got this guy in my sights, you have to grow roots because he’s right here (waving her hand in the space beside her),’” Skroki said.

 “They control our positioning,” said Cunningham. “We can’t do anything without them.”

 “As far as I’m concerned, I’d take our SWAT team up against any SWAT in the nation,” Skroki said. “You’ve got these guys who train at the ALERRT Center.”

ALERRT stands for The Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training Center at Texas State University. Read more about the ALERRT center in the call out box below.

“Our SWAT is the best of the best and we know it. We have a great relationship with them,” Skroki said. 

She laughed and continued, “We give each other a lot of crap. They call this the Partridge Family Bus. We tell them, hey, at least we have a bus.”

What’s it really like out there when negotiating?

“When we go on scene, it’s going to be a high crisis situation of some sort so our first goal is we’re going to try to develop some rapport with the person, we’re going to try to put them at ease, we’re going to put them in a situation where they’ll communicate with us,” said Donald Lee, SMPD Patrol Officer.

Rapport building and gaining trust is probably one of the most important aspects of what negotiators do, according to Lee.

“We let them know that whatever turned this situation into a real crap hole today, it’s workable outside of whatever it might be – killing themself, killing family members or whatever the case may be,” he said.

The primary negotiator tries to bring the crisis situation down to a point where the person can reason with law enforcement. 

Lee continued, “And once they reason with us, we’ll give them some options. We’re trying to let them problem solve themselves.”

He said the message they try to communicate to a person holding someone hostage or threatening to kill themselves, is that they can work this out in a peaceful solution where the person doesn’t get injured, hostages don’t get injured and officers don’t get injured.

“As long as you’re talking to us, we can keep the SWAT guys from coming in,” Lee continued. “Once the communication stops or once you start harming people inside, the truth is, we really don’t have any control over that because we really are going in to stop the violence that’s happening.”

Intelligence gathering

Beyond speaking with a suspect during a time of crisis, the team agreed that intelligence gathering is another critical component of their work.

The team takes in all of the information – what the suspect is saying, what demands he or she makes, what’s coming over the radio from other agencies and what they find on websites, Facebook and other searches. 

One person on the team acts as the scribe, taking notes and keeping a log of all the data. Other members of the team help by writing notes to the primary with ideas and suggestions, information such as family members names and whatever other nuggets they believe will help resolve the conflict in a peaceful manner.

More than once, the team said intelligence gathering has been crucial to an operation.

“Most recently we had a case out in Wimberley where we got ahold of the builder of the house and he came out to the scene and drew us what the inside of it looked like and how it was separated,” Spriegel said.

It turns out the home was a duplex and SWAT was concerned the suspect might somehow tunnel or break through to the other residence.

“We were able to tell them, no, we have the builder here and he mesquited the wall on one side,” Spriegel said.

In essence, that meant the suspect would be beating on the wall for a while before he got through. So that threat was minimized for SWAT.

How did someone think to call the home builder?

“Because I have the best damn set of intelligence gathers in the state,” Skroki said.

Staying sharp 

Since the hostage negotiation team doesn’t get that many calls, fortunately some would say, they train together for about eight hours each month in San Marcos, keeping their skills sharp. 

In addition, every January, they attend the Hostage Negotiation competition at Texas State University. In November, a contingent of the team attends an annual conference.

Skroki said that her team also critiques each real-life incident in a post-mortem.

“It’s not so much about patting ourselves on the back,” she said. “We break apart what we did wrong, so the next time we can step up.”

“Or [determine] what we can do better,” Spriegel added.

The Hays County Hostage Negotiation Team:

Hays County Sheriff’s Office

Lt. Jeri Skrocki, Law Enforcement Support Services

Sgt. Steve Cunningham, Patrol Division

Detective Lenny Martinez, CID

Sgt. Michael Mallow, Narcotics Division

Sgt. Michael Wood, Patrol Division

Deputy Danny Lombardo, Patrol Division

Sgt. Jesse Hernandez, Jail Support Services

San Marcos Police Department

Cpl. Detective Carl Spriegel, CID

Officer Donald Lee, Patrol

Detective Duwayne Poorboy 

Sgt. Jay Derrickson, Patrol Division

Officer Joyce Bender, Patrol

Detective Laray Taylor 

Officer Phillip Jackson, Mental Health Unit

Roya Williamson, Victim Services

Kyle Police Department

Detective PJ Carrasco Carrasco 

Sgt. Jake Luria, Detective Division  

Other

Professor Wayman Mullins, TSU and Reserve with HCSO

ALERRT

The Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training (ALERRT) Center at Texas State University. ALERRT was created in 2002 as a partnership between the University, the San Marcos Police Department and the Hays County Sheriff’s Office to address the need for active shooter response training for first responders.  

Using more than $25 million in state and federal grant funding in the last ten years, the ALERRT Center has trained more than 40,000 police officers nationwide in dynamic, force-on-force scenario-based training. 

The ALERRT curriculum, developed after the tragedy at Columbine High School, has become the national standard in active shooter response training.