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Photo by Xu Xiameng
Negotiating for life
by Xu Xiameng
Police negotiators save people out of danger and resolve critical incidents like other police officers. Yet, instead of applying force, they carry out their duties by means of adroit persuasion.
When Peter Roderick Morgan came to Hong Kong from Britain and joined the police force here 24 years ago, he had no plan to become a negotiator. But now he is the commanding officer of the Police Negotiator Cadre under the Hong Kong Police Force.
The 45-year-old senior superintendent is one of the most seasoned negotiators, with nearly 20 years of experience dealing with more than 100 cases.
¡§After I joined and completed the training, I was involved in quite a few incidents, including the Lockhart Road case which made me even more interested in the work, which was both challenging and meaningful,¡¨ Mr Morgan said.
In 1988, a lone robber held a number of people hostage in a public light bus parked in Lockhart Road in Wan Chai. Mr Morgan assisted the negotiator, who tried to talk the robber out of harming anybody. After six hours of negotiation, all the hostages were released safely.
¡§We both stood behind a cover just a few metres from the subject, who was holding a gun, which he frequently pointed at us. In the end, the subject surrendered to us and the gun was retrieved, without anyone getting hurt,¡¨ Mr Morgan said.
Being a negotiator is, in fact, voluntary in nature and police officers recruited into the negotiating team are not given extra pay.
¡§What we do is to stop (citizens) from hurting themselves or other people,¡¨ he said. ¡§It is a big satisfaction to save lives.¡¨
In reality, negotiators are not as glamorous as those characters appearing in movies since they must be prepared to work under stress at any time, Mr Morgan said.
Most of the cases take place early in the morning or late at night. ¡§You are home with your family and suddenly ¡¥bibibibi' (mobile or pager rings). You've got a case; you have to rush. In that case, it is not glamorous at all, ¡¨ he said. ¡§And it may be a case very stressful, very dangerous and everyone is looking to you to calm it down.¡¨
Negotiators work as a team. They give assistance to each other and make concerted efforts to come up with the best solution to deal with a case.
Although Mr Morgan speaks Cantonese, he will provide assistance and guidance, instead of being the main negotiator, in any case involving Cantonese speakers. This is to ensure effective communication throughout the negotiation, he said. When the team has to deal with an English speaker, he will be the one who negotiates.
A qualified negotiator must be prepared to deal with different kinds of people, including those who are depressed, suicidal, afflicted with mental illness or unemployed. Mr Morgan said even a ¡§normal person¡¨ might be emotionally driven to behave abnormally and violently.
He recalled that once a man with a history of psychological problems suffered a relapse and threatened to hurt himself with a knife inside his mother's flat.
Mr Morgan was in charge of the overall coordination of the negotiation. Fearing that the man might harm himself, the negotiating team decided to ask his uncle, whose voice they wished the man could recognise, to persuade him to get rid of the knife.
Following the instruction of the team, his uncle tried to soothe the man with his favourite mahjong game. ¡§Would you like to play mahjong?¡¨ his uncle asked. ¡§We only have three people to play and we need one more player.¡¨ The man then replied: ¡§OK. I will come out to play mahjong.¡¨ Finally he put down the knife.
The job of negotiators is always complicated, stressful and dangerous. A good negotiator has to be mature and intelligent, with good listening and communication skills, Mr Morgan said.
¡§Everybody thinks that a good negotiator is a good talker. Actually, that is not necessary in every case. You have to be a good communicator to find out what the problems are, try to work with the person and help him understand maybe hurting himself is not the best thing to do,¡¨ he said.
Negotiators should assure a person that they concern about him and are eager to help him sort out the problems. To gain the person's confidence, Mr Morgan usually starts his work in this way: ¡§Hello, my name is Pete, I am from the police. I'm going to help you.¡¨
The veteran negotiator has succeeded in talking every suicidal person out of hurting themselves. Persuasion is always the most effective method, he said.
However, in the course of persuasion, negotiators can either save or end a life. If they say the wrong thing, they may provoke the person and aggravate the situation.
¡§On the one hand you are trying to stop people doing it, but on the other hand you may say something to encourage people to do it,¡¨ he said.
Mr Morgan, living with his Chinese wife and three children, said life experiences also helped him with the persuasion work. Very often, negotiators encourage those people they help to think about their families, not only themselves. He said that kind of persuasion tactic was very useful because it was common sense: ¡§Your family needs you; your children need you.¡¨
But sometimes negotiators have to negotiate with dangerous people. If the negotiating team is dealing with a person who holds a weapon, the safety of the team must be given particular attention. In perilous circumstances, negotiation will be undertaken by phone instead, to protect the officers from being wounded. Yet, without face-to-face interaction, it will be more difficult for the negotiators to develop empathy with the people whom they try to calm down.
Mr Morgan said the work of negotiators was very different from his office work as he learned that there were issues that could be ¡§very overwhelming¡¨ and would force a person to do something he would not normally do. ¡§And when you come across this situation, you have to stop it from getting worse and worse. Otherwise, it just escalates all the time.¡¨
As a veteran negotiator, Mr Morgan has developed a positive outlook on life. ¡§There is always hope at the end of the day and there is always another way of doing things, if you think about the positive aspect, if you think about other people,¡¨ he said.
