ABSTRACT
There are several caveats the negotiator must consider and within which she or he should work when communicating with a hostage. An accurate analysis of hostages to determine if and how a negotiator can and should speak with them takes time. Time is to a hostage negotiator and a crisis response team, what an anesthetic is to a surgeon. One way to help identify the veracity of the information one gets from a hostage is to determine if they were targeted or a victim chosen at random. There is the Sveriges Kreditbank siege in September of 1973 in Stockholm, Sweden. It has been said that one of the hostages was romantically involved with the subjects, two remained aloof, and a fourth hostage was verbally and physically abused by the subjects.
