Under Siege

by Belinda Neil

  Ian got face down on the ground.

  ‘Hands on your head,’ I commanded. He obeyed.

  At that point my backup came over the hill like the US cavalry. I was delighted to see them, though I was feeling pretty pleased with myself. It had been a textbook arrest. Ian was handcuffed and picked up off the ground by the other police and we searched the car. We found a small quantity of white powder, so Ian was arrested and taken to the local police station.

  I couldn’t resist asking Ian why he hadn’t run, given his history. He looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘I thought about running but when I saw you holding the gun, it was shaking so much I thought you might accidentally let a shot go and I’d end up with a bullet in the bum.’ So much for me thinking I had handled that situation well.

  By the time I got back to our headquarters the story of my exploits had been outrageously expanded. The boss was told that my colleagues had found Ian lying on the ground of the car park, handcuffed, while I, with one foot on the ground and the other on his back, was applying lipstick while I waited for backup.

  At about this time I began working alongside Rob. Our working relationship, which became a romantic one, started off awkwardly because of what he had said to BP about me during the undercover operation. However, Rob was a very dedicated officer with a rapier wit. The fact that he was tall, dark and handsome was a nice addition. He was seven years older than me and seven years senior as a police officer. He was very romantic, at one stage sending a dozen red roses to my home anonymously. He also had a sense of humour, sending a male stripper to the office one day for my birthday, something the females in the office appreciated way more than our male counterparts.

  He had some interesting surveillance techniques when working with me. He would say, ‘Oh here comes the crook, quick, we’d better make like boyfriend/girlfriend,’ as he threw his arms around me. This always made me smile.

  It was good to be in a relationship with someone who understood my irregular working hours, the overtime and the trips away throughout the state, often staying in accommodation with male workmates. We had a common area of interest as we both worked in drug investigation and high-risk policing so we could discuss and share ideas. Later, as we gradually met and worked with the same people and knew their personalities and capabilities, we were able to give each other advice.

  However, because of our budding relationship, it became obvious to both of us that working together was not a good scenario. One of us needed to consider a transfer.

  In June 1991 the Tactical Response Group (TRG) and the Special Weapons and Operations Squad (SWOS) were disbanded after enquiries into the deaths of Darren Brennan, shot by a member of the TRG, and David Gundy, who had been shot by a member of SWOS. As a result the State Protection Group (SPG) Tactical Operations Unit (TOU) was formed. Their mission was to resolve high-risk incidents involving armed offenders and counter-terrorist operations.

  Trained along military lines, the members of the TOU are given advanced skills and weapons beyond the scope of regular police. Rob was undergoing training with the Special Air Service (SAS) in Perth (he was a member of the Police Assault Group – PAG – or the Counter-Terrorist Unit of SWOS) and and on his return to Sydney he was invited to join the SPG TOU. This suited us both as we could not continue to work together at the DEA Support Unit. Our relationship continued to develop and three years later, in November 1993, we were married.

  CHAPTER

  3

  Learning to negotiate

  The first time I heard about the Hostage Negotiation Unit was via my flatmate Sue, who worked with me at the DEA Support Unit and had a secondary role as a police negotiator with the State Protection Group. Sue and Rob both told me that there was a vacancy at the negotiators and suggested I apply.

  The aim of negotiation is the peaceful resolution of high-risk or crisis situations. A high-risk incident is one in which the gravity of the offence is taken into consideration as well as any history of violent behaviour, and there is a real possibility of injury or death to anyone involved, including the perpetrator.

  Before 1972 police all over the world who had to handle hostage situations either demanded the surrender of the hostage taker or brought in the police Tactical team to affect an arrest. This changed after September 1972 when Israeli athletes were taken hostage at the Olympic Village in Munich and later killed by members of the Palestinian Black September terrorist organisation. Police agencies began to consider the idea of negotiation as a principal strategy.

  Two New York Police Department officers, Lieutenant Frank Bolz and Officer Harvey Schlossberg, pioneered the use of negotiation and were the first to select and train officers specifically for it. The FBI soon followed, introducing a formal hostage negotiation training course at its training academy in Quantico, Virginia.

  In 1979 the first hostage negotiation course was held in Sydney and the NSW Police Hostage Negotiation Unit was formed. Its brief was to fulfil the New South Wales police policy of ‘contain and negotiate’ – that is, to use force only as a last resort. By the time I applied to join in 1992, the word ‘hostage’ had been dropped from the title because of the increasing diversity of callouts. The high-risk incidents police negotiators were trained to respond to included hostage situations, suicide intervention, kidnapping, extortion, high-risk search warrants and dangerous arrests, particularly with firearms involved, or any other situation where a trained negotiator would be able to assist other police.

  I was drawn to the idea of talking to someone in a life-threatening or high-risk situation to try to diffuse and resolve the incident. Again. It was another challenge and different to normal policing. Unlike undercover work there was no need to lie to gain trust, I was not making up stories or a character. I would be putting myself forward as a police officer and was overtly accountable as a police officer, and I preferred to be straightforward.

  In October 1992 I was accepted into police negotiator training. This meant three years of theoretical and practical training, all of which was continually assessed. In the first year I was required to attend Goulburn Police Academy for a two-week live-in basic course, and this was followed up with two one-week courses over the next two years. During the three years I was given the opportunity to go on call with a Sydney metropolitan negotiation team. This gave me invaluable experience outside the limitations of a role-play situation. After the initial three years there were further training days, intended to ensure negotiators were kept up to date with modern technology and negotiation methods.

  Basic training included instruction on many different aspects of being a negotiator: techniques and strategies, dealing with Stockholm syndrome (the psychological state of some hostages who become attached to their captors), psychological and psychiatric issues, developing listening and other communication skills. There were other practical issues: legal aspects, equipment for negotiation, the resources and procedures of the State Protection Group. There was information about the types of incident requiring negotiation. However, counterterrorism was only touched on during the basic course, being considered suitable only for experienced negotiators.

  The course featured many role plays as a way of putting theory into practice in a controlled environment. I found this one of the most important facets of our training. We were given realistic exercises, some of which had been actual callouts, and we worked with experienced police negotiators who had been in these situations and could provide appropriate emotional responses.

  All police negotiators worked part-time while maintaining their normal full-time duties. The only full-time negotiator was the commander, whose job was to co-ordinate all the negotiators in New South Wales. The state was divided into two areas: Sydney metropolitan and country. Metropolitan negotiators worked on a rostered on-call basis. There were six metropolitan teams, each including four trained negotiators, whose roles were decided on the basis of experience, not rank. The team leader’s job was to manage the team, liaise with senior o
fficers including the TOU and the Incident Commanders, guide and be responsible for strategy, assess intelligence, monitor the welfare of the team and prepare for team meetings – directing down time when required, organising appropriate advisers and technical assistance where needed, and carrying out record management. The primary negotiator was in charge of communicating with the subject and gathering intelligence, the secondary negotiator was to support the primary negotiator and relieve him or her if required. The fourth person on the team, the recorder, was responsible for maintaining the records and providing general support to the negotiation team, including interviewing victims or witnesses for information (not always required by police taking criminal statements), organising equipment and ensuring team security.

  Each team was on call once every six weeks. This period lasted for seven days, twenty-four hours a day, while at the same time we continued our normal areas of work. On-call periods started on a Wednesday, when we would go to the commander’s office at the Sydney Police Centre and pick up a pager, and finished when we returned the pager the following Wednesday. Metropolitan negotiators would help in the country if required; a plane was on standby at Sydney airport twenty-four hours a day to fly anywhere in New South Wales.

  As part of our training we were asked to take part in the State Protection Support Unit (SPSU) operator’s course. SPSU officers worked mainly in country/regional areas (although there was a metropolitan team). Their job was to contain emergencies including sieges, suicide intervention and hostage situations with, and in some cases instead of, the TOU. As negotiators and tactical operators work together, it was advantageous to have an understanding of how the other team worked.

  I undertook this course in 1994 with my dear friend and fellow negotiator Nicole and twenty-three burly males, all SPSU operatives. Of all the courses I did during my police career, this was the most physically demanding. It was held at Singleton army barracks north of Sydney for two weeks in December – one of the hottest months of the year – with time off for good behaviour on the weekend. Every day during training we wore heavy boots and full-length navy fire-retardant drill cotton overalls – absolutely stifling in the extremely hot and dry weather – and we carried water bottles.

  We undertook some form of physical activity every day, including running and an obstacle course. This consisted of a number of ropes, various obstacles and rope bridges strung up over a pool. Getting across the rope bridge, I realised, meant using physical strength: not my strong point.

  Nic went first. At only 1.57 metres tall, seventeen centimetres shorter than me, she could barely reach the guide ropes. I couldn’t believe the effort she put in. She struggled but made it to the end. Just prior to reaching the final obstacle she looked at me and yelled out, ‘If I can do it, you can do it,’ then made the final plunge headfirst into the water. With that encouragement, I gritted my teeth and stepped out onto the bridge. I was fairly cardio fit, having just trained and run a half marathon before embarking on this adventure, although I was not very strong, so found grasping and pulling myself up difficult. By the time I had reached the end I had a few bruises and aching limbs, but I’d made it across.

  One afternoon after a busy day the instructors drove us approximately ten kilometres away from the barracks and told us we were running back. In the energy-sapping heat we were still wearing our full-length overalls, boots and body armour, carrying a water bottle and an AR15 rifle that weighed 2.89 kilos unloaded. We formed lines and started the hard slog back to the barracks. Every so often the instructors would yell, ‘Get down!’ and we would dive to the side of the road and leopard crawl along the roadway until we were given the all clear to get up and keep going. This effectively doubled the time of our run.

  This exercise was definitely a test of mind over matter. You had to concentrate intently just to keep putting one foot in front of the other. The heat was stifling, making it difficult to breathe, and we were battling a plague of flies. Nic and I were running next to each other, giving each other moral support. The few who found it too challenging were allowed to sit in the vehicle following us.

  One feature of this course and the many others I have done is the camaraderie between participants, especially if the course is a difficult one. Nic and I, the only two girls, had developed a close mateship with many of the guys purely because we were all thrown together and had to perform the same, often very demanding, tasks. A couple of the guys offered to carry our rifles along with their own, however, they were struggling too and we wouldn’t do it to them. Besides, we are both very stubborn and we needed to do it for ourselves. We did appreciate the offer.

  When we finally saw the front gates to the barracks after a couple of hours, we all sighed with relief. Then it started to rain, which had a lovely cooling effect and stopped the flies for a short while. We ran into the barracks and finally the instructors told us to stop. We stopped. They told us to turn around. We turned around. They told us to start running back out. We were incredulous, surely not, but away we went again. After about ten metres they told us they were just kidding and we could stop. Mind games are not particularly amusing when you are physically exhausted.

  The course included advanced weapons training with the Remington 870 pump-action shotgun and the Colt AR15/ M16 semi-automatic rifle, standard weapons for these specialised units; weaponless control including unarmed combat and use of batons (this lesson was particularly painful); and bushcraft navigation, which also meant camouflage and concealment. We were also taught close quarter battle (CQB) or armed combat inside suspect premises – houses, planes, boats, etc. The principles were speed, surprise, momentum, controlled aggression, teamwork and communication. We learned the principles of marksmanship – the ability to fire accurately and safely at close range and at long distance – methods of entry including the use of necessary tools such as window reamers, sledgehammers, rams and hydraulic tools, and how to handle exposure to chemical agents, particularly CS gas, commonly known as tear gas.

  We carried out this last exercise on another stifling day in a paddock at Singleton. We were all dressed in the usual kit, full-length fire retardant overalls, as well as body armour and a gas mask. One of our instructors came up and shouted, ‘Two lines, now! Let’s go!’ We followed him at a slow jog, sweating profusely.

  Meanwhile the instructors were busy preparing saturation levels of CS gas in a hut about three metres by five metres in diameter. We were to enter the hut, be exposed to the chemical agents and learn how to use an M17 respirator gas mask, all without panicking. The instructor divided us into groups of four, with Nic and myself in the same group, the second to go in. When the first group came out ripping their gas masks off, they looked a mess, with mucus streaming from their noses, and red eyes.

  ‘Good luck,’ I said to Nic before the instructor yelled, ‘Masks on!’ and we went into the hut. My vision was restricted by the gas mask though I could see it was very cloudy, like a smoke haze. Then, one of the instructors, also wearing a gas mask, said, ‘Masks off.’ Almost immediately I had a strong chemical taste in my mouth and the back of my throat and my eyes were stinging, beginning to water as I struggled to keep them open.

  The instructor came next to me and said, ‘Name?’

  ‘Belinda Neil,’ I replied, attempting to hold my breath and avoid breathing the gas-contaminated air.

  ‘Registered number?’

  ‘23451.’ Concentrate on his voice, concentrate on his voice, I kept saying to myself. It was almost impossible: I was getting more and more disoriented as my body gasped for oxygen. I could feel my neck and my face around my nose starting to burn: the gas was settling on my skin. Now I realised why we had been told to run beforehand – so the pores in our skin would be open …

  I was sweaty and tired and wanted more than anything to run towards the door. Only pride and downright stubbornness were keeping me there, answering the instructor’s questions. In the end survival instinct took over and I had to breathe. I could feel the sti
nging and burning of the gas down my throat and in my eyes.

  After ten or fifteen minutes he said, ‘Gas, gas, gas,’ which meant the conversation was over. I put the gas mask back over my head and cleared it by placing my hands over the outpiece, blowing hard. Then I gave him the thumbs-up signal to indicate I was comfortably breathing again, although all areas of my exposed skin were stinging, and I was allowed to leave the gas hut.

  Outside I pulled off the mask and grabbed at my overalls pocket for a tissue because I could feel mucus running down my face. It felt like sandpaper against my irritated skin, effectively only making matters worse. Nic was bent over with contaminated nasal secretions hanging down to her knees. This was not one of our most glamorous days. Breathing in that gas sure beat inhaling Vicks VapoRub as a way of curing sinus problems.

  Nic and I were determined not to let the negotiators’ side down, so we weren’t going to pike out of anything. After the first week when we headed home for a weekend rest, I booked myself in for a massage as my body ached all over. The masseuse was horrified when he came in and saw the number of bruises all over my legs and arms from the baton training and the obstacle course. The next time I saw my masseuse, at the end of the second week, I had a lovely collage of old and new bruises ranging from yellow/black to red/blue.

  One day we were training with the AR15 semi-automatic rifle. Our targets were 100 metres away. Six of us at a time were to lie down in a row and fire five shots each at our individual targets. Then we walked down to our targets to see how we had fared. My target was a clean white sheet of paper with black target circles on it. There wasn’t a single bullet hole; I thought I might have managed at least a couple of shots on the outer edges. The guy on my left had seven shots in the middle of his target, the guy on the right had eight. At least I’d helped them. There was nothing wrong with my marksmanship, I thought. I just hit the wrong targets.