Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me is Charles W. Punkin Bryant. Yeah, doing his cheeks. How you know I'm in the heavy That's that's why he's right there? Coolio. This is double good luck. Okay, well good then this should probably be a pretty good podcast, which means we are doomed. Yes, Josh, Before we get going, can I just mentioned a little TV show coming up, uh, the Road to Punkin Chunkin and Punkin Chunking itself naturally? Yeah? Yeah, and that, Josh is Thanksgiving Night your board after your Turkey o on the Science Channel eight Eastern time. Right, So insert clever intro chunck. Have you ever been a hostage? No? Nor have I. I I would remember that, I think, but you would. Have you ever seen Inside Man? Uh? No? Is that which one was at Denzel? No? I didn't see that, Clive Owen, I wanted to dude, that is in my opinion, I haven't seen Dog Day Afternoon, but I think it's the greatest hostage movie ever made. You haven't seen Dog Day Afternoon. No, Chuck, I'm not seventy like you. Oh, I forgot that they burned all the copies in nineteen when you were born in the Great Fire started by a who. Dog Afternoon was gold. You should check it out. I will check it up. You know a hundred year old movie. No, I'm sure it's good. It was Paccino, it is prom sure, yeah, before he just went absolutely nuts. Um, well, okay, neither one of us has been a hostage or seeing each other's movies, right, But no, we must seen war games. But I can imagine that if either one of us were a hostage, there would be a hostage negotiator outside. Right, I would be dead pretty soon. I think if I were a hostage, has a pizza delivery person could have delivered that that segway better than me? Yeah? Yeah, in thirty minutes or less. Yeah uh so, Yeah, Josh, let's talk about hostage and negotiation. I can't say that word negotiations. Yes, Chuck, let's it is. There's a few things going on. Usually the hostage taker is want something, yeah, money, or they want to free their brothers that are political prisoners or um, they want safe passage or something like that, right, or they want you know, some country to stop some policy at and uh, usually the target of the hostage shaker is not the hostage but some other third party. Yeah and yeah, but we'll we'll get to the exception on that. And I was, I was chomping at the bit, right, I know, finally they are hostages are usually only bargaining chips that have symbolic value, right, Like for example, the nineteen seventy two Olympic Games in Munich, the hostages there had some serious symbolic value. They were, um, Israeli athletes and uh what kind of what kind of terrorists? Well, the target was the Israeli government clearly, not the athletes. They were the pawn, the symbolic pawn. Much like in the nineteen seventy two Olympics in Munich, the hostage crisis that happened there over what a twenty four period, Um, a bunch of Palestinian terrorists took some Israeli athletes hostage, and they were targeting Israel. So these were very symbolic pawns. I guess, as you'd put them, right, did you see Munich did you say, my god, it's a good movie. Man, that's a good one. Uh. And so Josh, now we can move on to the phases of a hostage situation. Okay, the initial phase, so Chuck, yes, all right, let's let's dramatize this a little bit. Okay, the initial phase. Yeah, we're just a group of people hanging out and say a bank. Sure, we'll do a bank. And then all of a sudden, a bunch of guys come through the door, kicking off what's known as the initial phase, right, like you said, already, right, And what's the initial phase, Chuck? It is a initial stage of panic and violence where they subdue the hostages and uh, it's it's very um. So during the initial phase they come in, everybody get on the floor, right, right, and then they barred the doors, and uh, the initial phase is very brief. Did he like my machine gun? Yeah? That's good. Then comes the negotiation phase, and that's when Johnny Law comes on the scene, and that's generally called the standoff phase. Right, And this is almost always the longest phase of a hostage situation. This is when all the negotiation is taking place, when they send in pizza boxes with little cameras and people have to pee, and the negotiators saying, if there's a pregnant woman in their letter out stuff just when people have to pee. Yeah, that's a good one. And then the final phases that the ter a nation phase. And uh, you've got a few different results that can happen here. Um, either the hostage takers surrender and they're arrested, or the police uh kind of mountain assault and kill them or arrest them, or their demands are granted and they get away. Uh. Yeah, and the second one is actually what happened. Actually, combination of two and three is what happened in Munich. As anybody who's seen the movie knows. Um, the West German police are like, we can't take these guys that, we need to let them think that they're actually going to escape and get them to the airport. All the hostages were killed, along with a pilot and a police officer. Uh and uh the rest of the um, the hostage takers, the Palestinian terrorists were killed except for three who were captured right there. It was a blood bath, basically, Well, I thought they were hunted down later, didn't that What Munich was about the people who engineered it. Okay, we're supposedly hunted down later by the massad bright Eric Bannah, who is just clearly most solid material the Australian massade. Um. So yeah, those are the three phases. And um during the second phases when the negotiator comes on the scene, right and UM, if you've ever seen the movie Negotiator, the negotiators clearly disappointed. Um. But there was something that is very characteristic of hostage negotiation, and that is it's a very important point that the hostage negotiator not be the league commander on the scene. And why Chuck well because um, Well, for a couple of reasons. One is that the negotiator doesn't need to be multitasking right then, they need to have all their focus on talking to and talking down the hostage taker. This one reason that's part of it. They also, um, one of the one of the great tactics that hostage negotiators use is um to stall and they prolonged the situation. That seems like the main tactic, right, it's just by time. One of the one of the tactics they use to create that tactic, UM is to say, well, I can't make that call I've got to talk to somebody else. Um, And if it's common knowledge that the hostage negotiator actually is commanding the scene, then that doesn't really work. Right. They'll say, well, you can pull the trigger on that because you're the boss exactly, and they're like, no, no, no, don't use that phrase. Right. That's in every movie, every single hostage movie is that scene where they go, well, I just can't give you a seven forty seven full of gold bars, dude. I gotta get clearance from Fort Knox and I'm gonna take at least a day, so you might want to lower your demands, which is actually another reason they stalled to try and chip away at the demands. So the negotiators on the scene and he's trying to prolong the situation. Like you said, um, they're trying to lessen the demands. They're also um, but they also stall and prolong the situation by um, getting the hostage takers to focus on some minute and really unimportant details. Yeah, I like this. They try to derail them, so like the seven forty seven, what kind of seven forty seven do you want? It? Is it okay if it was built before? Because we've got some that are built after that. But then they have this seating arrangement that might be a problem for you, And and all of a sudden, you're distracting the hostage taker from the crisis at hand, and he's thinking about what kind of seven seven he wants? You know, I could just see the guy putting his hand over the thing and going, what kind of plane do we want? He's asking about seek configurations. I have no idea, right exactly. It's also they hang up, and then you've bought some time, right And and not only um, not every hostage taker once a seven forty seven, but this can also be applied to even more minute details, like what do you want on your pizza? You know? Well, I mean, do you really want bell pepper because you're getting onion already and sometimes it's too crunchy. I imagine there's a point where if you're talking to a hostage taker and you try the bell Pepper onion combo, because all they're gonna pick up on what you're doing, or if they've read this article or ever ever seen a hostage movie, be sure that's another good they would probably be wise to say it. It sounds to me like you're trying to buy some time here, bang bang, indeed, which is what the hostage negotiator does not want to happen. No, that's number two on their list. One is to prolong it. And while while they're prolonging it, we should mention that there trying to get information as much information as possible on who the person is, how many there are, what's frame of mind they're in, if they're unstable, if they're violent, um, any kind of clue that can that can help him out, right, Because a hostage negotiator is going to talk differently. They're not going to try that Bell pepper onion thing on like a very cool, calculated Clive Owens type, but they might on somebody who's like just out of his mind crazy because his wife is leaving him. Right, which is actually the most common hostage situation is a domestic dispute that's turned into some guy with the gun barricading he and his family in their home. Yeah, you usually think of the big movie scenario with some foreign enemy taking all these people hot stage, but it's usually just a regular domestic scene. And the worst ones, man, the worst ones of those you see on the news where you see some dudes got a baby acting as a human shield. Who does that? You've never seen that? No, Oh man, it's it's the worst watching those cop shows, that those true crime shows. A baby is a human shield. Guys. It's like the dad is out of his mind and uh on drugs or something and he'll have his baby and it's just it's the worst thing in the world to watch unfold, very disturbing. Well bet in fact, don't go see that, Joshua. That'll keep you up at night. I bet it will. So that is the most common type of things domestic. But back to the safety of the hostages. That's number two on the list of the negotiators to keep everyone in there alive, right, I would think could technically be number one. Well, prolonging the situation I think leads to number one. So it's the kind of tied right. So, um, what you want to do if you're a negotiator and you are chipping away at demands. First of all, you're trying to get the seven forty seven out the window or the gold bars from Fort Knox, But you're really trying to get to the heart of what what does this guy want? He wants the seven forty seven and he wants gold bars. Well, he wants to escape and he wants some money, So maybe it can be dealt with on a lesser level. But first, let's get you some food in there. But to get you some food, I need a hostage. To get as many hostages out as possible. Number one, to ensure the safety of the hostages, as you said, but number two for if when when an assault comes, if it does come, there's a lot fewer hostages in there that the police need to not shoot, you know, Plus the hostage did you just say this, The hostage can turn if they release someone who's like ill or pregnant, they can give them information, insider information, right, like, even to create an even more distinct psychological profile. That kind of right, right, Yeah. I like the fact that you were talking about the lessening the demands, like we can't get your seven forty seven and gold bars, and it really could. I could see that throwing the hostage taker into a tizzy. If all of a sudden there have to decide, well, will you take a helicopter in a cash years chat? That kind of well, actually I hadn't thought it before, but will you endorse it before him right, Yeah, let's go to the bank. Oh I'm in a bank. Awesome, Yes, bring me that cast. Here's check please. So number three on their list is to keep everything calm. You don't want to upset a hostage taker. No, you're gonna keep everything nice and chill, especially following the initial phase, that initial assault. The guys all jacked up on like adrenaline. He's a little crazy. All of a sudden, it's starting to sink in if he accidentally took hostages, starting to sinking like, oh my god, I'm I am a hostage taker. Now this is a little nuts. So you want to keep the guy calm, or the guys or the gals calm, especially if it was a biter mine Hoff experiment. No idea what that is. It's actually the there's a movie out called the Body mine Hoff Complex, I think um. And they actually introduced terrorism to the Western world where was a group of Germans, German radicals, Kevin Space, basically board kids that introduced things like skyjacking and stuff like that. They were crazy crazy, uh so, Josh. The fourth thing, and this was my favorite one. Actually, one of the goals of the hostage negotiator is to um, get the hostage taker and the hostages to work together to give them some task where they have to interact, like delivering the pizza. So send out, um, you're you're most agreeable hostage that you trust the most to get the pizza and bring it in. So all of a sudden, the hostage taker has to talk to the hostages and say, hey, we need you to go and get the pizza because we can't go within the sniper range. And the more you get them interacting, the more chance that the hostage taker sees the hostage as a human instead of just blind phoning them and putting them in the corner right or in shooting them in the head. There was actually a very famous case of that in some hostage takers took over a subway train or a train in Holland and a guy named Robert de Groot was about to be executed Chuck, and apparently they allowed him to pray first, and they heard him praying for his wife and children, and they got them so bad that they just couldn't execute the guy, so they actually fake executed him. Uh, the standoff continued, and when it came time to execute more hostages, they didn't give him a chance to pray and just actually executed him. And I'm sure they pushed him off the train and he rolled down the hill and like faked like he was dead. And I'm sure the rest of the hostages were like, thanks, Bob, you right now we don't even not only can we not pray, but we're getting a bullet in the head. Yeah, And I was thinking about that, like this is you feel so removed from it. The weird thing about being a hostage is like, no one plans on being a hostage. It just happens all of a sudden. And imagine dying on a train on some track in halland by being executed by some hostage taker during a standoff. What a crap way to die. You ride on the money there, brother, Yeah, so Chuck, I think I think it's pretty damn pretentious of us to have not brought up Stockholm syndrome yet, don't you. Yeah, go ahead identifying with your captor. Yeah, it actually came out of a bank robbery and I think nineteen eighty one um in Stockholm appropriately enough, and uh, this this bank robbers plan just kind of went to crap. And I've been like using pseudo bad words all day, stupid and weird. This bank robbers plan kind of went to pot and all of a sudden he was a hostage taker. Right, Well, this standoff continued, and strangely enough, the hostage just started helping him. They were serving his lookouts. They were giving him advice on how to escape and how to deal with the negotiator and all that. And that's kind of odd if you think about it. So why would why would people suffer this what they call Stockholm syndrome. Well, there's a lot of psychological reasons for it. Yeah, defense mechanism, coping, coping type of thing. Well, yeah, if you feel powerless in a situation like that, you go to whoever has the power, and when you're a hostage, your hostage taker has the power. Yeah. And the other thing I mentioned too, is that if you're not killed and there are other hostages are killed, you feel such a sense of relief that can actually morph into sympathy. It's kind of like I remember we did the brainwashing Uh yeah podcast? Yeah, good one. Uh you want to talk about countries and some famous non negotiating countries. Yeah, do you remember the eighties, it was like planes were getting hijacked everywhere all over the body Mine Hoff. Yes, the the United States, Russia, and Israel are all very well known for having a non negotiating policy with hostage takers and terrorists. France had the opposite didn't work out for him, though, No, it didn't. France became very quickly a target um for hostage to a king because France would apparently be like, what do you want? Ha ha ha. Right, And apparently sometimes, and this doesn't surprise me, the countries that refused quote unquote refused to negotiate, there might be some secret negotiations that happened that they never let out because that would destroy their front that they won't negotiate, right. And France also apparently had a little problem with um forming agreements with hostage takers, and then the hostage takers would break the agreements, which is crazy, can you believe it? With a bunch of So there is a there's an equilibrium, Chuck loves equilibrium. But there's an equilibrium between not negotiating at all and over negotiating. And I think that's what you're talking about. It's kind of like negotiating on the download and never talking about it and then hunting the people down who did this and murdering them. Right, So, Chuck, let's talk about what happens when you just absolutely refused to negotiate, as we've seen actually in the twenty one century, sadly enough twice in Russia. Yeah, a couple of famous occurrences there with the Muslim Chechen separatists. In two thousand two, they took over a theater in Russia, threatened to blow it up, and so the Russians go in and wonder who who was it putin? You think the guy who wrestles tigers with his shirt off in front of news cameras, don't you don't bear his hallmark? Yeah, they decided to storm the theater and uh send in some knockout gas instead of negotiating, and they ended up killing all. I don't know if it's all of them, but a hundred and twenty nine hostages died from the knockout knockout gas. That's not knockout, guess that's death gass. I think that's what you mean by knockout. I don't think they just don't want to call it death gass. Maybe. So my eyes are open now because I didn't realize that was a euphemism. The other one, Josh, was really really sad. I remember this one while in oh four when the same Chechen separatists invaded an elementary school with guns and bombs and locked themselves up in a gym and Russia would not Negotia eight and three of the hostages that were killed. Yeah, that was awful. And half of them were kids. When they blew up the gymnasium, it was terrible. Listen up Putin. Yeah, but you maintain your toughness and we're not gonna negotiate. Just kill the kids. Okay, so chuck you you okay there, Yeah, I'm good. I'm good. Let's talk about a hostage situation that actually went relatively well, at least compared to UM Russia. I know what you're gonna talk about. Well, there's a very famous incident at Prince's Gate UH in London in April UM members of the Democratic Revolutionary Movement for the Liberation of Arabistan changed that name. It's a mouthful, isn't it. Basically Arabistan is an Iranian province UH, and the group wanted to liberate it clearly UM. And they were Democrats I guess. But they were. They were I think twenty of them and they took no, there were six of them and they took twenty six hostages at the US Embassy in London at Prince's Gate. So there was a uh standoff that lasted quite a while. Um. The hostage negotiator did this. By the book, UH kept the hostage takers focused on details like what kind of food do you want? That kind of thing. Um, Yeah, I'm in the mood for time. I could go for a nice um curry bunha. Yeah, that sounds good. That's Indian though. That's good stuff, by the way, if you've ever had it. Um. They actually did execute one hostage, but the other hostages apparently reported that this guy UM decided to get into a debate over Islam with Iranian terrorists, which you don't do in a hostage situation if you hostage. The negotiator actually did manage to get the release of two ill hostages. Um. Maybe one of them is pregnant. Sometimes when you replaced ill with pregnant, which I don't understand, And they got info from them. Yeah. And so basically the one thing that really wasn't by the book was that the the s a. Yes, got the which is the Special Forces in Great Britain. They are bad. I have a friend who's in that. Yeah, I can't say his name here, okay. Um, they got the hostage negotiator to talk to the hostage takers on the phone right before the assault, knowing the assault was coming as a distraction. Right. That doesn't happen much, not usually. And why because they don't let the negotiator in on this kind of information, because they think that they would compromise the job just through maybe even inflection or tone of their voice. They would give it away right on purpose. Of course, No, no, certainly not. Very few hostage negotiators experienced Stockholm syndrome negotiation. Definitely just mentally crumble at the first time. But this it actually paid off. The hostage negotiator cut the um lead guy away from the window and the s A S storm the bill boom too tap. I imagine five of the guys and arrest the sixth. Ye not bad. And I think they only lost one other hostage, uh twenty six, which is not bad. No, but I mean if your storm of building in the hostage situation, it's like, well, yeah, that guy lost his life and another guy lost his life. But it's like, yeah, but that's actually really good percentage, I would image. I mean, I wonder what well I would guess the two thousand four Russian standoff is probably a bit as bad as it can get. Yeah, I would say so. One thing we mentioned there that I thought was pretty interesting was you mentioned the Stockholm syndrome. But that is actually a tactic that the negotiator will use, sort of sort of a good cop bad cop thing. Uh. They'll get on the phone or what however they're communicating and say, yeah, you know I actually they'll try and relate to them. I kind of see where you're coming from. I understand this police captain does not understand where you're coming from, and he wants to mow you down. To talk to me, man, and we'll work it out between us. Chuck, you would make it excellent hostage negotiated. I just realized I wish I had a hostage I could give to you right now. That was good. Oh, I just offer you a six pack and you throw it down, your gun all over pretty much and some smokes. But that's a pretty cool trick there. I like that. Of course, again, this is straight out of the movie. So if any Hotches Staker has ever seen any of these films and they should be one step ahead of the negotiator, I would think so. Um there's another um example of not going by the book that I wanted to mention. Uh in in nineteen seventy five of the U. S Consulate and Kuala Lumpoor, Malaysia, UM, there was there was a hostage situation and uh apparently the Japanese Red Army, members of the Japanese Red Army UM attacked the consulate and took hostages. So the terrorists actually called the the authorities to tell them that they had the hostages, and some junior officer at the at the embassy elsewhere in the embassy picked up the phone and from that point on, for the rest of the standoff, they wouldn't talk to anybody else but this junior officer. Wow, yeah, who was not a trained hostage to negotiate it. And it's just like, oh, god, well he probably has an eating Well, no, there was a negotiator on the scene, like coaching, coaching the junior officer. But yeah, yeah. I also saw in the article where there's um, there's always a second, a secondary negotiator on the hand, because sometimes, because you're basically improving, you gotta be quick on your feet, and if all of a sudden you're going ah, had that, you need someone to step in and say tell them that will send them pizza. That first one sounded exactly like Kevin Spacey in The Negotiator. I didn't see that. When there's some stupid twist where he was in fact the in on it or something who I don't remember. I blocked it out of my memory. That might have been spoiler. Of course you're supposed to say spoiler beforehand. But whatever. Yeah, well, we are pretty much done here with hostage negotiation. We're gonna leave a whole section untouched on becoming a hostage negotiator. You can find that in the article how hostage Negotiation Works. You can type in hostage I imagine on the handy search bar at how stuffworks dot com, which means it's time for listener mail. No, no, Josh, not today, Okay, no listener mail. We're gonna do a little Kiva update like we are wont to do. Okay, so you want to go ahead and give the plug? Yeah, man, we started a Kiva team Keeva dot org k I v A. Dot org is a micro lending website, socially responsible one which means you don't make any interest on your loans. You can loan as little as twenty five bucks to people in developing countries and now the US um entrepreneurs who are trying to become self sufficient through their businesses. They're little, tiny loans that make a huge difference elsewhere in the in the world. Indeed, uh, and we are kicking bottom on this. We are man, and I'm proud of the stuff you should know Army, because you guys are responding and this is really really cool. We challenge the Colbert Rapport or I like to call it the Colbert Report, and we actually made a video where we chastised him. Yeah, what you probably never see, but just if you watch the Colbert Report, scoff while you watch it thinking of Chuck and I and the stuff you should know Army. People are responding in a big way and it's going great. And hopefully the Colbert Report will take notice because that will make even more money for Kiva and it might get us on his show. Chuck is just chomping at the bit again on the show, so well, if you want to join the Stuff you Should Know, keep the team, please do, please do. Um. You can go to www dot kiva dot org slash team slash Stuff you Should Know, and that will take you right there. A plus, there's a pretty picture chuck on there. Yeah, me and Emily. Actually it's a picture of U. We have you know, she's on my team. I was talking about our picture. Oh no, no, no. On the member page though. If you're curious of what my wife and I look like together, then you can surf through the member page. And is that the one that's your screensaver in your iPhone too? Yeah, it's It's one of the best pictures I heard of us. It's very nice. Thank you. Uh and how about the blogs? Real quick? Yeah, we both run a blog, and I'm gonna I've been lazy with it lately. I'm gonna get back on off the schneid Um. You can access the blog on the blogs page on which you can find on the right side of the house Stuff Works dot dot com home page. I just barely split that out, so that's where you can find it. Yeah. Go interact, Yes, go interact. That's a pretty cool blog. We like it a lot. If you have an email, or if your name is Aisha Tyler and you have never listened this far before in a podcast, you can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, is that how stuff works dot com. Want more house stuff Works, check out our blogs on the house stuff works dot com home page. M H brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camry. It's ready, are you

Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me is Charles W. Punkin Bryant. Yeah, doing his cheeks. How you know I'm in the heavy That's that's why he's right there? Coolio. This is double good luck. Okay, well good then this should probably be a pretty good podcast, which means we are doomed. Yes, Josh, Before we get going, can I just mentioned a little TV show coming up, uh, the Road to Punkin Chunkin and Punkin Chunking itself naturally? Yeah? Yeah, and that, Josh is Thanksgiving Night your board after your Turkey o on the Science Channel eight Eastern time. Right, So insert clever intro chunck. Have you ever been a hostage? No? Nor have I. I I would remember that, I think, but you would. Have you ever seen Inside Man? Uh? No? Is that which one was at Denzel? No? I didn't see that, Clive Owen, I wanted to dude, that is in my opinion, I haven't seen Dog Day Afternoon, but I think it's the greatest hostage movie ever made. You haven't seen Dog Day Afternoon. No, Chuck, I'm not seventy like you. Oh, I forgot that they burned all the copies in nineteen when you were born in the Great Fire started by a who. Dog Afternoon was gold. You should check it out. I will check it up. You know a hundred year old movie. No, I'm sure it's good. It was Paccino, it is prom sure, yeah, before he just went absolutely nuts. Um, well, okay, neither one of us has been a hostage or seeing each other's movies, right, But no, we must seen war games. But I can imagine that if either one of us were a hostage, there would be a hostage negotiator outside. Right, I would be dead pretty soon. I think if I were a hostage, has a pizza delivery person could have delivered that that segway better than me? Yeah? Yeah, in thirty minutes or less. Yeah uh so, Yeah, Josh, let's talk about hostage and negotiation. I can't say that word negotiations. Yes, Chuck, let's it is. There's a few things going on. Usually the hostage taker is want something, yeah, money, or they want to free their brothers that are political prisoners or um, they want safe passage or something like that, right, or they want you know, some country to stop some policy at and uh, usually the target of the hostage shaker is not the hostage but some other third party. Yeah and yeah, but we'll we'll get to the exception on that. And I was, I was chomping at the bit, right, I know, finally they are hostages are usually only bargaining chips that have symbolic value, right, Like for example, the nineteen seventy two Olympic Games in Munich, the hostages there had some serious symbolic value. They were, um, Israeli athletes and uh what kind of what kind of terrorists? Well, the target was the Israeli government clearly, not the athletes. They were the pawn, the symbolic pawn. Much like in the nineteen seventy two Olympics in Munich, the hostage crisis that happened there over what a twenty four period, Um, a bunch of Palestinian terrorists took some Israeli athletes hostage, and they were targeting Israel. So these were very symbolic pawns. I guess, as you'd put them, right, did you see Munich did you say, my god, it's a good movie. Man, that's a good one. Uh. And so Josh, now we can move on to the phases of a hostage situation. Okay, the initial phase, so Chuck, yes, all right, let's let's dramatize this a little bit. Okay, the initial phase. Yeah, we're just a group of people hanging out and say a bank. Sure, we'll do a bank. And then all of a sudden, a bunch of guys come through the door, kicking off what's known as the initial phase, right, like you said, already, right, And what's the initial phase, Chuck? It is a initial stage of panic and violence where they subdue the hostages and uh, it's it's very um. So during the initial phase they come in, everybody get on the floor, right, right, and then they barred the doors, and uh, the initial phase is very brief. Did he like my machine gun? Yeah? That's good. Then comes the negotiation phase, and that's when Johnny Law comes on the scene, and that's generally called the standoff phase. Right, And this is almost always the longest phase of a hostage situation. This is when all the negotiation is taking place, when they send in pizza boxes with little cameras and people have to pee, and the negotiators saying, if there's a pregnant woman in their letter out stuff just when people have to pee. Yeah, that's a good one. And then the final phases that the ter a nation phase. And uh, you've got a few different results that can happen here. Um, either the hostage takers surrender and they're arrested, or the police uh kind of mountain assault and kill them or arrest them, or their demands are granted and they get away. Uh. Yeah, and the second one is actually what happened. Actually, combination of two and three is what happened in Munich. As anybody who's seen the movie knows. Um, the West German police are like, we can't take these guys that, we need to let them think that they're actually going to escape and get them to the airport. All the hostages were killed, along with a pilot and a police officer. Uh and uh the rest of the um, the hostage takers, the Palestinian terrorists were killed except for three who were captured right there. It was a blood bath, basically, Well, I thought they were hunted down later, didn't that What Munich was about the people who engineered it. Okay, we're supposedly hunted down later by the massad bright Eric Bannah, who is just clearly most solid material the Australian massade. Um. So yeah, those are the three phases. And um during the second phases when the negotiator comes on the scene, right and UM, if you've ever seen the movie Negotiator, the negotiators clearly disappointed. Um. But there was something that is very characteristic of hostage negotiation, and that is it's a very important point that the hostage negotiator not be the league commander on the scene. And why Chuck well because um, Well, for a couple of reasons. One is that the negotiator doesn't need to be multitasking right then, they need to have all their focus on talking to and talking down the hostage taker. This one reason that's part of it. They also, um, one of the one of the great tactics that hostage negotiators use is um to stall and they prolonged the situation. That seems like the main tactic, right, it's just by time. One of the one of the tactics they use to create that tactic, UM is to say, well, I can't make that call I've got to talk to somebody else. Um, And if it's common knowledge that the hostage negotiator actually is commanding the scene, then that doesn't really work. Right. They'll say, well, you can pull the trigger on that because you're the boss exactly, and they're like, no, no, no, don't use that phrase. Right. That's in every movie, every single hostage movie is that scene where they go, well, I just can't give you a seven forty seven full of gold bars, dude. I gotta get clearance from Fort Knox and I'm gonna take at least a day, so you might want to lower your demands, which is actually another reason they stalled to try and chip away at the demands. So the negotiators on the scene and he's trying to prolong the situation. Like you said, um, they're trying to lessen the demands. They're also um, but they also stall and prolong the situation by um, getting the hostage takers to focus on some minute and really unimportant details. Yeah, I like this. They try to derail them, so like the seven forty seven, what kind of seven forty seven do you want? It? Is it okay if it was built before? Because we've got some that are built after that. But then they have this seating arrangement that might be a problem for you, And and all of a sudden, you're distracting the hostage taker from the crisis at hand, and he's thinking about what kind of seven seven he wants? You know, I could just see the guy putting his hand over the thing and going, what kind of plane do we want? He's asking about seek configurations. I have no idea, right exactly. It's also they hang up, and then you've bought some time, right And and not only um, not every hostage taker once a seven forty seven, but this can also be applied to even more minute details, like what do you want on your pizza? You know? Well, I mean, do you really want bell pepper because you're getting onion already and sometimes it's too crunchy. I imagine there's a point where if you're talking to a hostage taker and you try the bell Pepper onion combo, because all they're gonna pick up on what you're doing, or if they've read this article or ever ever seen a hostage movie, be sure that's another good they would probably be wise to say it. It sounds to me like you're trying to buy some time here, bang bang, indeed, which is what the hostage negotiator does not want to happen. No, that's number two on their list. One is to prolong it. And while while they're prolonging it, we should mention that there trying to get information as much information as possible on who the person is, how many there are, what's frame of mind they're in, if they're unstable, if they're violent, um, any kind of clue that can that can help him out, right, Because a hostage negotiator is going to talk differently. They're not going to try that Bell pepper onion thing on like a very cool, calculated Clive Owens type, but they might on somebody who's like just out of his mind crazy because his wife is leaving him. Right, which is actually the most common hostage situation is a domestic dispute that's turned into some guy with the gun barricading he and his family in their home. Yeah, you usually think of the big movie scenario with some foreign enemy taking all these people hot stage, but it's usually just a regular domestic scene. And the worst ones, man, the worst ones of those you see on the news where you see some dudes got a baby acting as a human shield. Who does that? You've never seen that? No, Oh man, it's it's the worst watching those cop shows, that those true crime shows. A baby is a human shield. Guys. It's like the dad is out of his mind and uh on drugs or something and he'll have his baby and it's just it's the worst thing in the world to watch unfold, very disturbing. Well bet in fact, don't go see that, Joshua. That'll keep you up at night. I bet it will. So that is the most common type of things domestic. But back to the safety of the hostages. That's number two on the list of the negotiators to keep everyone in there alive, right, I would think could technically be number one. Well, prolonging the situation I think leads to number one. So it's the kind of tied right. So, um, what you want to do if you're a negotiator and you are chipping away at demands. First of all, you're trying to get the seven forty seven out the window or the gold bars from Fort Knox, But you're really trying to get to the heart of what what does this guy want? He wants the seven forty seven and he wants gold bars. Well, he wants to escape and he wants some money, So maybe it can be dealt with on a lesser level. But first, let's get you some food in there. But to get you some food, I need a hostage. To get as many hostages out as possible. Number one, to ensure the safety of the hostages, as you said, but number two for if when when an assault comes, if it does come, there's a lot fewer hostages in there that the police need to not shoot, you know, Plus the hostage did you just say this, The hostage can turn if they release someone who's like ill or pregnant, they can give them information, insider information, right, like, even to create an even more distinct psychological profile. That kind of right, right, Yeah. I like the fact that you were talking about the lessening the demands, like we can't get your seven forty seven and gold bars, and it really could. I could see that throwing the hostage taker into a tizzy. If all of a sudden there have to decide, well, will you take a helicopter in a cash years chat? That kind of well, actually I hadn't thought it before, but will you endorse it before him right, Yeah, let's go to the bank. Oh I'm in a bank. Awesome, Yes, bring me that cast. Here's check please. So number three on their list is to keep everything calm. You don't want to upset a hostage taker. No, you're gonna keep everything nice and chill, especially following the initial phase, that initial assault. The guys all jacked up on like adrenaline. He's a little crazy. All of a sudden, it's starting to sink in if he accidentally took hostages, starting to sinking like, oh my god, I'm I am a hostage taker. Now this is a little nuts. So you want to keep the guy calm, or the guys or the gals calm, especially if it was a biter mine Hoff experiment. No idea what that is. It's actually the there's a movie out called the Body mine Hoff Complex, I think um. And they actually introduced terrorism to the Western world where was a group of Germans, German radicals, Kevin Space, basically board kids that introduced things like skyjacking and stuff like that. They were crazy crazy, uh so, Josh. The fourth thing, and this was my favorite one. Actually, one of the goals of the hostage negotiator is to um, get the hostage taker and the hostages to work together to give them some task where they have to interact, like delivering the pizza. So send out, um, you're you're most agreeable hostage that you trust the most to get the pizza and bring it in. So all of a sudden, the hostage taker has to talk to the hostages and say, hey, we need you to go and get the pizza because we can't go within the sniper range. And the more you get them interacting, the more chance that the hostage taker sees the hostage as a human instead of just blind phoning them and putting them in the corner right or in shooting them in the head. There was actually a very famous case of that in some hostage takers took over a subway train or a train in Holland and a guy named Robert de Groot was about to be executed Chuck, and apparently they allowed him to pray first, and they heard him praying for his wife and children, and they got them so bad that they just couldn't execute the guy, so they actually fake executed him. Uh, the standoff continued, and when it came time to execute more hostages, they didn't give him a chance to pray and just actually executed him. And I'm sure they pushed him off the train and he rolled down the hill and like faked like he was dead. And I'm sure the rest of the hostages were like, thanks, Bob, you right now we don't even not only can we not pray, but we're getting a bullet in the head. Yeah, And I was thinking about that, like this is you feel so removed from it. The weird thing about being a hostage is like, no one plans on being a hostage. It just happens all of a sudden. And imagine dying on a train on some track in halland by being executed by some hostage taker during a standoff. What a crap way to die. You ride on the money there, brother, Yeah, so Chuck, I think I think it's pretty damn pretentious of us to have not brought up Stockholm syndrome yet, don't you. Yeah, go ahead identifying with your captor. Yeah, it actually came out of a bank robbery and I think nineteen eighty one um in Stockholm appropriately enough, and uh, this this bank robbers plan just kind of went to crap. And I've been like using pseudo bad words all day, stupid and weird. This bank robbers plan kind of went to pot and all of a sudden he was a hostage taker. Right, Well, this standoff continued, and strangely enough, the hostage just started helping him. They were serving his lookouts. They were giving him advice on how to escape and how to deal with the negotiator and all that. And that's kind of odd if you think about it. So why would why would people suffer this what they call Stockholm syndrome. Well, there's a lot of psychological reasons for it. Yeah, defense mechanism, coping, coping type of thing. Well, yeah, if you feel powerless in a situation like that, you go to whoever has the power, and when you're a hostage, your hostage taker has the power. Yeah. And the other thing I mentioned too, is that if you're not killed and there are other hostages are killed, you feel such a sense of relief that can actually morph into sympathy. It's kind of like I remember we did the brainwashing Uh yeah podcast? Yeah, good one. Uh you want to talk about countries and some famous non negotiating countries. Yeah, do you remember the eighties, it was like planes were getting hijacked everywhere all over the body Mine Hoff. Yes, the the United States, Russia, and Israel are all very well known for having a non negotiating policy with hostage takers and terrorists. France had the opposite didn't work out for him, though, No, it didn't. France became very quickly a target um for hostage to a king because France would apparently be like, what do you want? Ha ha ha. Right, And apparently sometimes, and this doesn't surprise me, the countries that refused quote unquote refused to negotiate, there might be some secret negotiations that happened that they never let out because that would destroy their front that they won't negotiate, right. And France also apparently had a little problem with um forming agreements with hostage takers, and then the hostage takers would break the agreements, which is crazy, can you believe it? With a bunch of So there is a there's an equilibrium, Chuck loves equilibrium. But there's an equilibrium between not negotiating at all and over negotiating. And I think that's what you're talking about. It's kind of like negotiating on the download and never talking about it and then hunting the people down who did this and murdering them. Right, So, Chuck, let's talk about what happens when you just absolutely refused to negotiate, as we've seen actually in the twenty one century, sadly enough twice in Russia. Yeah, a couple of famous occurrences there with the Muslim Chechen separatists. In two thousand two, they took over a theater in Russia, threatened to blow it up, and so the Russians go in and wonder who who was it putin? You think the guy who wrestles tigers with his shirt off in front of news cameras, don't you don't bear his hallmark? Yeah, they decided to storm the theater and uh send in some knockout gas instead of negotiating, and they ended up killing all. I don't know if it's all of them, but a hundred and twenty nine hostages died from the knockout knockout gas. That's not knockout, guess that's death gass. I think that's what you mean by knockout. I don't think they just don't want to call it death gass. Maybe. So my eyes are open now because I didn't realize that was a euphemism. The other one, Josh, was really really sad. I remember this one while in oh four when the same Chechen separatists invaded an elementary school with guns and bombs and locked themselves up in a gym and Russia would not Negotia eight and three of the hostages that were killed. Yeah, that was awful. And half of them were kids. When they blew up the gymnasium, it was terrible. Listen up Putin. Yeah, but you maintain your toughness and we're not gonna negotiate. Just kill the kids. Okay, so chuck you you okay there, Yeah, I'm good. I'm good. Let's talk about a hostage situation that actually went relatively well, at least compared to UM Russia. I know what you're gonna talk about. Well, there's a very famous incident at Prince's Gate UH in London in April UM members of the Democratic Revolutionary Movement for the Liberation of Arabistan changed that name. It's a mouthful, isn't it. Basically Arabistan is an Iranian province UH, and the group wanted to liberate it clearly UM. And they were Democrats I guess. But they were. They were I think twenty of them and they took no, there were six of them and they took twenty six hostages at the US Embassy in London at Prince's Gate. So there was a uh standoff that lasted quite a while. Um. The hostage negotiator did this. By the book, UH kept the hostage takers focused on details like what kind of food do you want? That kind of thing. Um, Yeah, I'm in the mood for time. I could go for a nice um curry bunha. Yeah, that sounds good. That's Indian though. That's good stuff, by the way, if you've ever had it. Um. They actually did execute one hostage, but the other hostages apparently reported that this guy UM decided to get into a debate over Islam with Iranian terrorists, which you don't do in a hostage situation if you hostage. The negotiator actually did manage to get the release of two ill hostages. Um. Maybe one of them is pregnant. Sometimes when you replaced ill with pregnant, which I don't understand, And they got info from them. Yeah. And so basically the one thing that really wasn't by the book was that the the s a. Yes, got the which is the Special Forces in Great Britain. They are bad. I have a friend who's in that. Yeah, I can't say his name here, okay. Um, they got the hostage negotiator to talk to the hostage takers on the phone right before the assault, knowing the assault was coming as a distraction. Right. That doesn't happen much, not usually. And why because they don't let the negotiator in on this kind of information, because they think that they would compromise the job just through maybe even inflection or tone of their voice. They would give it away right on purpose. Of course, No, no, certainly not. Very few hostage negotiators experienced Stockholm syndrome negotiation. Definitely just mentally crumble at the first time. But this it actually paid off. The hostage negotiator cut the um lead guy away from the window and the s A S storm the bill boom too tap. I imagine five of the guys and arrest the sixth. Ye not bad. And I think they only lost one other hostage, uh twenty six, which is not bad. No, but I mean if your storm of building in the hostage situation, it's like, well, yeah, that guy lost his life and another guy lost his life. But it's like, yeah, but that's actually really good percentage, I would image. I mean, I wonder what well I would guess the two thousand four Russian standoff is probably a bit as bad as it can get. Yeah, I would say so. One thing we mentioned there that I thought was pretty interesting was you mentioned the Stockholm syndrome. But that is actually a tactic that the negotiator will use, sort of sort of a good cop bad cop thing. Uh. They'll get on the phone or what however they're communicating and say, yeah, you know I actually they'll try and relate to them. I kind of see where you're coming from. I understand this police captain does not understand where you're coming from, and he wants to mow you down. To talk to me, man, and we'll work it out between us. Chuck, you would make it excellent hostage negotiated. I just realized I wish I had a hostage I could give to you right now. That was good. Oh, I just offer you a six pack and you throw it down, your gun all over pretty much and some smokes. But that's a pretty cool trick there. I like that. Of course, again, this is straight out of the movie. So if any Hotches Staker has ever seen any of these films and they should be one step ahead of the negotiator, I would think so. Um there's another um example of not going by the book that I wanted to mention. Uh in in nineteen seventy five of the U. S Consulate and Kuala Lumpoor, Malaysia, UM, there was there was a hostage situation and uh apparently the Japanese Red Army, members of the Japanese Red Army UM attacked the consulate and took hostages. So the terrorists actually called the the authorities to tell them that they had the hostages, and some junior officer at the at the embassy elsewhere in the embassy picked up the phone and from that point on, for the rest of the standoff, they wouldn't talk to anybody else but this junior officer. Wow, yeah, who was not a trained hostage to negotiate it. And it's just like, oh, god, well he probably has an eating Well, no, there was a negotiator on the scene, like coaching, coaching the junior officer. But yeah, yeah. I also saw in the article where there's um, there's always a second, a secondary negotiator on the hand, because sometimes, because you're basically improving, you gotta be quick on your feet, and if all of a sudden you're going ah, had that, you need someone to step in and say tell them that will send them pizza. That first one sounded exactly like Kevin Spacey in The Negotiator. I didn't see that. When there's some stupid twist where he was in fact the in on it or something who I don't remember. I blocked it out of my memory. That might have been spoiler. Of course you're supposed to say spoiler beforehand. But whatever. Yeah, well, we are pretty much done here with hostage negotiation. We're gonna leave a whole section untouched on becoming a hostage negotiator. You can find that in the article how hostage Negotiation Works. You can type in hostage I imagine on the handy search bar at how stuffworks dot com, which means it's time for listener mail. No, no, Josh, not today, Okay, no listener mail. We're gonna do a little Kiva update like we are wont to do. Okay, so you want to go ahead and give the plug? Yeah, man, we started a Kiva team Keeva dot org k I v A. Dot org is a micro lending website, socially responsible one which means you don't make any interest on your loans. You can loan as little as twenty five bucks to people in developing countries and now the US um entrepreneurs who are trying to become self sufficient through their businesses. They're little, tiny loans that make a huge difference elsewhere in the in the world. Indeed, uh, and we are kicking bottom on this. We are man, and I'm proud of the stuff you should know Army, because you guys are responding and this is really really cool. We challenge the Colbert Rapport or I like to call it the Colbert Report, and we actually made a video where we chastised him. Yeah, what you probably never see, but just if you watch the Colbert Report, scoff while you watch it thinking of Chuck and I and the stuff you should know Army. People are responding in a big way and it's going great. And hopefully the Colbert Report will take notice because that will make even more money for Kiva and it might get us on his show. Chuck is just chomping at the bit again on the show, so well, if you want to join the Stuff you Should Know, keep the team, please do, please do. Um. You can go to www dot kiva dot org slash team slash Stuff you Should Know, and that will take you right there. A plus, there's a pretty picture chuck on there. Yeah, me and Emily. Actually it's a picture of U. We have you know, she's on my team. I was talking about our picture. Oh no, no, no. On the member page though. If you're curious of what my wife and I look like together, then you can surf through the member page. And is that the one that's your screensaver in your iPhone too? Yeah, it's It's one of the best pictures I heard of us. It's very nice. Thank you. Uh and how about the blogs? Real quick? Yeah, we both run a blog, and I'm gonna I've been lazy with it lately. I'm gonna get back on off the schneid Um. You can access the blog on the blogs page on which you can find on the right side of the house Stuff Works dot dot com home page. I just barely split that out, so that's where you can find it. Yeah. Go interact, Yes, go interact. That's a pretty cool blog. We like it a lot. If you have an email, or if your name is Aisha Tyler and you have never listened this far before in a podcast, you can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, is that how stuff works dot com. Want more house stuff Works, check out our blogs on the house stuff works dot com home page. M H brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camry. It's ready, are you