CARING IS ALL YOU CAN DO
City’s top hostage negotiator tells of emotional toil having history of personal tragedy key to the job
THE NYPD’S TOP CRISIS negotiator rarely sees the long-term fruits of his labor.
But a couple of years back near courthouse row on Chambers St. in lower Manhattan, Lt. Chris Zimmerman was stopped by a big, burly, tattooed man dressed like a biker who had a shaved head.
“This guy stops me and says, ‘I just want to shake your hand. I stopped using drugs because you told me my life was more valuable than going to prison or dying,’ ” recalled Zimmerman, commander of the NYPD’s Hostage Negotiation Team. “I had no idea who he was. Then I remembered. It turned out I had helped talk him out of his apartment back in 2008. Small world.”
Zimmerman’s team responds to about 40 of the most serious calls a month with specially trained veteran detectives stationed around the city. The people they talk to are backed into a corner in the midst of the worst moments of their lives.
Sometimes, the calls involve hostage situations, but they also rush to calls involving people threatening suicide and people who have barricaded themselves in a room, refusing to come out.
Zimmerman, 49, has been in the unit for 10 years, and its commander for about 18 months. Even with the angriest or most mentally unstable people, the negotiators have to summon a sense of caring. They have to build a rapport.
“If you don’t care, you won’t be a good negotiator because then it just becomes a business, and you’re very standoffish,” he said. “You have to expose your own emotions to build that rapport. It’s not easy.”
The goal is removing the people from the situation with no force, even when they are calling the police the worst names one can imagine.
“I’ve been called everything, things I wouldn’t want recorded,” he said. “I’ve been called names so many times over my career that the effect has worn off.”
Zimmerman obsessively checks his email, and when his phone rings at 3 a.m., he doesn’t hesitate to answer it. He’s married and has two sons, 14 and 17. In all, six of his relatives work for the NYPD.
“The job is programmed into me,” he said. “I don’t have to run around and tell everyone what I do. I’m just happy knowing I’m doing the right thing, and my sons see me and know that.”
Zimmerman’s tailor once called him threatening suicide. He convinced him to meet him outside a hospital.
“This man is in the worst moment of his life and he’s calling me,” he said. “I told the doctors, and now, he’s doing OK. Sometimes things just don’t make sense.”
More recently, a Bronx couple fell into a vicious argument in an apartment with three children, ages 7, 9 and 12.
As Zimmerman’s team tried to
If you don’t care, you won’t be a good negotiator. . . You have to expose your own emotions to build that rapport. It’s not easy. LT. CHRIS ZIMMERMAN
talk them out, the woman kept screaming at the man.
“She would start screaming and he kept saying ‘I can’t take this,’ ” he said. “I kept saying, ‘Focus on me. Don’t be distracted.’ ”
After two hours, the man came out, and 30 minutes later, the woman did. The kids were unharmed.
“You have to let people realize you’re human, and I have a family, too, and I go through hardships, too,” Zimmerman said. “But it’s not about me. It’s about you. And you have to give them hope.”
An armed robbery suspect holed up in his apartment with a gun wouldn’t come out. The drama went on for more than three hours. Zimmerman said he told the man, “Life is more important. You’re going to get arrested, but you need to minimize what you’re doing.”
In one case, there was a woman who wanted to hug him before she would come out. And there was the guy who held firm for more than five hours before relenting.
If there’s no one in immediate danger, the negotiators use time to resolve the situation.
“We hope that as time goes along, it will have a sobering effect,” he said. “When you have emotions high, your composure is really low.”
Zimmerman said he’s effective because he has had what he describes as a lot of tragedy in his own life.
“I have personal friends who have died, very close friends, relatives,” he said.
When he was in charge of the Missing Persons Unit, he had to witness the autopsy of a friend’s son. A friend killed himself and he was there for that autopsy as well. A second friend hanged himself.
“I had to sit there and feed back all the information to the chief,” he said. “It was very difficult. You have to keep your composure. You still feel the pain. Seeing that death and realizing how valuable life is, that pushes me.”
Those experiences have left him with a powerful message for people who are considering suicide, which he calls a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
“Even when you think life is bad, it’s not that bad,” he said. “Every day you wake up, it’s a good day. Take it day by day. Even if you can’t, take it minute by minute. Get through the next minute, because you are going to see that as you progress forward, that weight is going to come off of your shoulders.”
Zimmerman said he talks to people who have survived suicide attempts and asked them why they tried to do it. One man told him he was still behaving like a 20-year-old, when all of his friends were successful.
“The most clarifying explanation was the person who told me the walls were coming in and they were speeding up. He said he couldn’t stop it even if he wanted to,” he said. When he interviews prospective negotiators, he looks for detectives with a minimum of 12 years on the job, but most importantly, those who have suffered tragedy.
One of his former negotiators, now retired, had previously tried to kill himself. He set up his apartment to suggest he had been murdered, including putting plastic on the floor.
“He had an alcohol problem,” Zimmerman said. “He was calling around and apologizing to people. Someone recognized the signs, and walked in and took his gun, and he survived.”
That detective is now retired and gives talks to the negotiators.
“He stands in the room, and tells the story to some of the most seasoned detectives in the city and brings them to tears,” Zimmerman said.
Another detective had a son who had a rare disorder that caused rage episodes.
“He says I’ve had to call the police on my own son and take him repeatedly to the hospital,” Zimmerman said. “I teared up. He said, ‘If I can do that, then I can do this.’ ”