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Authors: Gary Noesner
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out to the police in Spanish, “Everything is okay.” He told the police to leave him alone. At least he was now communicating with words rather than gunfire. With some coaching by officers on the scene, Jorge stepped up efforts to open a dialogue, throwing out questions like “What’s going on? How can we help?” But shortly after midnight, Mario stopped communicating just as abruptly as he had started.
At 9:55 a.m. Saturday, Mario broke the silence once again, blurting out that he was holding a gun to the head of one of the children. Again, the police had done nothing to provoke this action or this announcement.
Chief Heineman’s frustration was growing, along with the pressure on him. He was in command of all of the personnel on hand, a job that included making sure that officers on the perimeter protected the scene from unwanted intrusion. He had to coordinate all of the assisting agency representatives, ensure that sniper/observers were relieved and allowed to get food and rest, speak to the press, and try to come up with a strategy to resolve this situation without loss of life.
At 11:00 a.m., Heineman brought in a medical doctor to try to assess the condition of the children, based on the sounds they were or were not making. During the evening it had gotten very cold, but temperatures rose again during the day, which must have made the compartment hot, stuffy, and uncomfortable. Officers attached a better listening device, almost like a large-scale stethoscope, outside the compartment door so that the doctor could listen in. He heard Julie asking her mother to wake up, but nothing else that would indicate the child’s own condition or that of her baby brother.
At 11:37 a.m., two shots were fired in a rapid burst, the first indication that Mario had a machine gun—yet another fact weighing against a tactical assault.
At 1:00 p.m., Mario shouted out again, threatening to kill himself and the children. He also demanded that orange juice and matches be sent in. Jorge offered water, but only if Mario would let the children go. Through the listening device, the officers on hand could hear Julie saying,“Agua, agua.” Then they heard Mario telling her to be quiet. Jorge continued to offer food and water, but Mario’s only response was to yell obscenities at the police.
It was a Saturday and I was at home in Virginia when I received a call from Fred Lanceley, my primary negotiation instructor at Quantico, who had become a good friend. Fred told me he had been asked to help with an incident on an Amtrak train; some shots had been fired and they were trying to negotiate with the guy, but he spoke only Spanish. Did I have someone on my team at WFO who spoke Spanish? I thought immediately of Ray Arras, a thirty-nine-year-old El Paso native who had just recently completed the FBI hostage-negotiation training course. He had come to the FBI at a relatively late age after running the El Paso Zoo. I had been impressed by his confidence and easygoing manner; he would be great in a tense situation like this. Fred told me to have Ray come to Davidson Army Airfield, located at nearby Fort Belvoir, where he would be picked up by an FBI plane and flown directly to Raleigh.
This sounded like the kind of challenging case I had been hoping to be involved in. I had handled other crisis situations—someone holed up and threatening suicide, domestic disturbances that turned into barricades—but this was a chance to work a major standoff. And so I asked Fred if he could use my help in Raleigh. He agreed and told me to meet him and Ray at Fort Belvoir.
In a couple of hours a four-seat Cessna took the three of us from Virginia to the Raleigh airport, where an FBI sedan ferried us directly to the Amtrak station. Just as we were arriving, at around 6:00 p.m., Mario fired two more shots through the compartment door. Tactical officers had been attempting to deliver the matches that Mario had asked for earlier, and apparently this
At 9:55 a.m. Saturday, Mario broke the silence once again, blurting out that he was holding a gun to the head of one of the children. Again, the police had done nothing to provoke this action or this announcement.
Chief Heineman’s frustration was growing, along with the pressure on him. He was in command of all of the personnel on hand, a job that included making sure that officers on the perimeter protected the scene from unwanted intrusion. He had to coordinate all of the assisting agency representatives, ensure that sniper/observers were relieved and allowed to get food and rest, speak to the press, and try to come up with a strategy to resolve this situation without loss of life.
At 11:00 a.m., Heineman brought in a medical doctor to try to assess the condition of the children, based on the sounds they were or were not making. During the evening it had gotten very cold, but temperatures rose again during the day, which must have made the compartment hot, stuffy, and uncomfortable. Officers attached a better listening device, almost like a large-scale stethoscope, outside the compartment door so that the doctor could listen in. He heard Julie asking her mother to wake up, but nothing else that would indicate the child’s own condition or that of her baby brother.
At 11:37 a.m., two shots were fired in a rapid burst, the first indication that Mario had a machine gun—yet another fact weighing against a tactical assault.
At 1:00 p.m., Mario shouted out again, threatening to kill himself and the children. He also demanded that orange juice and matches be sent in. Jorge offered water, but only if Mario would let the children go. Through the listening device, the officers on hand could hear Julie saying,“Agua, agua.” Then they heard Mario telling her to be quiet. Jorge continued to offer food and water, but Mario’s only response was to yell obscenities at the police.
It was a Saturday and I was at home in Virginia when I received a call from Fred Lanceley, my primary negotiation instructor at Quantico, who had become a good friend. Fred told me he had been asked to help with an incident on an Amtrak train; some shots had been fired and they were trying to negotiate with the guy, but he spoke only Spanish. Did I have someone on my team at WFO who spoke Spanish? I thought immediately of Ray Arras, a thirty-nine-year-old El Paso native who had just recently completed the FBI hostage-negotiation training course. He had come to the FBI at a relatively late age after running the El Paso Zoo. I had been impressed by his confidence and easygoing manner; he would be great in a tense situation like this. Fred told me to have Ray come to Davidson Army Airfield, located at nearby Fort Belvoir, where he would be picked up by an FBI plane and flown directly to Raleigh.
This sounded like the kind of challenging case I had been hoping to be involved in. I had handled other crisis situations—someone holed up and threatening suicide, domestic disturbances that turned into barricades—but this was a chance to work a major standoff. And so I asked Fred if he could use my help in Raleigh. He agreed and told me to meet him and Ray at Fort Belvoir.
In a couple of hours a four-seat Cessna took the three of us from Virginia to the Raleigh airport, where an FBI sedan ferried us directly to the Amtrak station. Just as we were arriving, at around 6:00 p.m., Mario fired two more shots through the compartment door. Tactical officers had been attempting to deliver the matches that Mario had asked for earlier, and apparently this
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