(USA)
As the standoff between San Francisco police and a suspected car
thief threatening to jump from a South of Market building crept
into its third hour Wednesday evening, officers turned to an
unlikely source to help them talk the man down: his cat.
The man, barefoot and wearing only black shorts, was distraught
and hanging out of a third-floor window of a building at 10th and
Harrison streets, threatening to leap. Officers set up foam pads
below him as the department’s trained hostage negotiators perched
precariously on a fire escape, urging the suicidal man figuratively
and literally off the ledge.
But after three unsuccessful hours, reinforcements arrived — in
the form of the man’s orange-and-white feline.
Using his pet, hostage negotiators were able to persuade him to
go back inside the building, come down the stairs and surrender
without incident.
Within 45 minutes of the cat’s arrival, the 3½-hour standoff was
over.
“Using the cat was ingenious,” said Officer Albie Esparza, a
police spokesman. “Never underestimate the power of the love
between people and their pets. I think it was great to think
outside the box like the officers did. It made enough of an impact
on this person to bring him down and come to his senses.”
The man had run into the building about 2:30 p.m., after he had
been stopped while driving a white Toyota Highlander that had no
license plates.
While California Highway Patrol officers questioned him, he sat
on a sidewalk. When a computer check showed that the car was
stolen, the man jumped to his feet and ducked into the building,
CHP officials said.
San Francisco police responded to the scene once the situation
devolved from a traffic stop to a possible suicide attempt.
Officers from the hostage negotiation team, the tactical unit, the
motorcycle unit, the traffic division as well as Southern Station
arrived to aid in the standoff, Esparza said.
A common strategy in these situations is to call the family of
the person in crisis, in hopes a loved one can talk them down,
Esparza said. The man’s family was on its way from the East Bay as
negotiators gently spoke to him from the fire escape.
When police learned the man’s relatives brought his cat to the
scene, officers took it up to the negotiators. Shortly after 6
p.m., the man went back inside the building and the standoff was
resolved.
“I don’t remember ever using a cat before, but it worked,”
Esparza said. “The guy voluntarily came out of the window and
opened the door and was taken into custody without incident.”
Esparza said he never got the cat’s name, but he applauded the
officers for their quick thinking, as well as their sensitivity.
Even as the man was handcuffed and taken to a police car, officers
brought the cat to him so he could see his beloved feline before
going to jail.
“The hostage negotiators establish a trust with the person,
regardless if they are suicidal or a suspect, and you want to
maintain that trust as much as you can,” Esparza said. “The guy
wasn’t resisting. There was no need not to help him out. Obviously,
he had a very emotional attachment to the cat and it was nice to
comfort him as much as possible.”
