‘I am the rock, the only thing between them and total disaster.’

Originally, Jan Stauffer saw becoming a Sheriff’s Department hostage negotiator as a way to get out of jail duty and into tactical situations and patrol. Now a lieutenant, she has headed the 10-person negotiation team for six years and is the only woman on it. She stresses that the work its members do is done as “a team,” each supporting the other. Though preferring not to disclose many personal details of her life, she nonetheless reveals a lot in recounting for Times photographer Dave Gatley a hostage situation that became her longest, and most emotional . . . lasting nearly 24 hours.

The only time my sex has entered into the hostage situation has been in the Valley Center thing where (the barricaded subject) didn’t do well with a male negotiator and she did respond to me.

I believe she had a handgun and a rifle. She was having marital problems. Her husband had the two children, and she wanted to see them . . . and he didn’t want her to see them. She took her 12-year-old nephew hostage from his school bus and barricaded herself in a permanent mobile home in a very rural area.

I did not respond initially to this one. It was my daughter’s birthday and my day off. The incident was still going on after about 12 hours, and I was notified around 2 in the morning because she was not responding at all.

She was desperate and didn’t think that she’d ever be able to see her young children again. She was at her rope’s end and just didn’t know what else to do. At one point, she didn’t want to talk at all. She said, “You can’t help me, you won’t do any good, and what do you know anyway, you’re just a cop.” And I said, “Well, you’re right. I am a cop, but I’m also a mother, I have three kids and I know very much what it’s like. I’m here because I want to help you out of this.”

I could relate to how I would feel if I were in that position, and I assume that was what she felt, so it was real easy to talk with her in that vein. I guess you would call it “mother talk.”

Finally, the nephew walked out on his own, and I was dealing with a barricaded subject. I wasn’t dealing with a hostage taker anymore. It was one on one, just her and me. We talked about everything in the world, it seemed like, anything to keep her talking. I don’t know how many hours it was when she got mad at me, said I was lying, the kids weren’t there, she’d never get to see them, and “You won’t have to worry about me anymore.” . . . and she broke contact.

I had promised her right along: The children are here if you will come out, I’ll bring the children to you, I’ll let you hold them, I’ll let you kiss them, I’ll let you talk to them. I promise you I’ll do that. She didn’t believe me.

I was feeling pretty down right then. I had tried everything in the world with this lady . . . . And I heard a shot. I knew, flat out, she had shot herself. The immediate thought of failure comes to you because you have talked with her for hours and hours and hours. But when I heard that there was movement inside the trailer, I ran back to the phone and called her, and she answered.

You don’t think about what they’ve done or haven’t done. It’s a human being that you want, regardless of what’s going to happen to him later, right now he or she’s in danger and you want to keep it safe, that’s all. I am the rock, the only thing between them and total disaster.

When we negotiate, we think about solving the situation the best way we can, but specifically we think on our feet. A peaceful resolution for everyone is paramount. You tell them that you are a sheriff’s negotiator, a cop. Then the first thing you do is to try to establish this rapport and this trust so they’ll talk to you, so they’ll believe you, that you are on their side. Whatever you can do to keep them talking. Time is definitely on our side the longer we can keep them from doing something hostile or violent.

In many cases, they just want an easy way out. They started this on a spur-of-the-moment thing. . . .It could be passion, it could be fear, it could be whatever. They started this incident, and in many cases they want to resolve the incident, too, but they don’t want to be embarrassed about it.

To make a long story short, she finally came out. I don’t know if it was my constant nagging at her that did it, or being flat-out tired, or whether she started to believe me. All of a sudden, with no preamble, she just said, “Oh, I’m tired of it!” I immediately left and got the kids. I brought them to her, and there was a tearful, happy, joyful reunion, and everybody got out safe.

She gave no indication that she recognized me, and I never saw her again.