I became a lieutenant around the time when a lot of young adults were abandoning their MySpace accounts and moving onto bigger platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Although it was recognized that most of us carried a phone we weren’t supposed to use them and of course, never on a call. Social media, on it’s own, also posed some new challenges to the department and a “Social Media Policy” was eventually created. It was during this time that I received a barricaded EDP job where the patient was locked in his grandmother’s apartment and holding his sister hostage.
The grandmother lived in public housing and had, at one time, allowed her 16 year old grandson to live with her for a while. Her son, she said, had “lost control and patience with ‘David'”. The grandmother thought she could help mediate the situation by having him stay with her since she had always had a good relationship with him. But unfortunately, not long after he moved in, he started doing things she didn’t approve of, including some criminal activity and drugs. Despite grandma’s best efforts he would not stop and she feared being evicted from her apartment should her grandson be arrested. She called her son and he had arrived that day to bring David back to their home in another state. After locking himself in the apartment (and locking his grandmother out) David’s sister, Mary, tried to get him to come out but instead became locked in the apartment with David. That’s when the family called the police.
Most of the time, these barricaded-type jobs involve waiting long periods of time for the police to get into an apartment. Before breaking down the door a lengthy negotiation often takes place either on the phone or through the door and while this is going on a long line of police officers stands by in the hallway. I and my crew also wait in the hallway, often at the opposite end. It seemed like an extremely long negotiation. The police were very much hoping David would open the door himself. So was I. It was summer, extremely hot, and there was no air-conditioning in the hallway. Everyone was restless.
My crew had spoken to the family and gotten much of the information for the call report already. All they needed was David, and possibly Mary. It was unclear at the time if David would be regarded as a mentally ill patient and a determination would be made based on things David said to the officer along with information the family provided about his history (and he had no history previously). All we could do was wait and see how things played out.
I made periodic trips to the other end of the hall for updates and on one trip back to our end of the hall, I saw that the female half of my female/male crew was using her phone excitedly. It looked unprofessional and I went to say something to her.
“But Lieu,” she said, “I found David online.”
“Our David?” I asked, pointing down the hall.
“Yes!” she said. “He’s livestreaming right now, acting like this whole things is a media event. He’s bragging that PD is buying them milkshakes and basically saying how he’s getting over on everyone.” I watched on her phone how our patient and his sister were interacting with their audience. Many of his friends were just downstairs filming things on their end and posting to David’s account. Both David and Mary seemed very comfortable being on camera and did not seem to be too concerned about the actions going on on the other side of the door.
I borrowed her phone and went over to my PD contact person. He was instantly mesmerized by the videos. He took the phone and moved up further in the procession to the negotiator. I watched the shocked and surprised expressions on everyone. They brought the phone back to my crew and asked them how to interact with David on this platform. The police were able to pretend to be followers asking him vague questions about their motives and were able to discern that there were no weapons. They continued to distract him while the Emergency Service officer got to work breaking down the door. This was also livestreamed on their end, as was David’s arrest a short time later.
We did not take David to the hospital as he was not considered to be an “EDP”. We did take his sister, Mary. She claimed to be deeply traumatized, despite her performance in the videos.
The police were extremely grateful for our assistance and the way it was handled through social media. I tried to put my crew in for some recognition from my department for their forward thinking problem solving but was discouraged by many officers up the chain of command. They noted that the use of the phone itself was problematic and felt that rather than getting a commendation we would all face some kind of discipline given they department’s distaste for social media. On the PD side, I speculate that the officers received congratulations and honors for the out-of-the-box techniques used on this particular call.
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