The Four Types of Hostage Takers

At the NYPD we used to break down hostage takers into four broad categories:

• Professional criminals who found themselves trapped after trying to escape from a crime.

• Emotionally disturbed individuals—a catchall category for everyone from a paranoid schizophrenic to a severely depressed person.

• People involved in domestic incidents, possibly the most unpredictable of all. These incidents involve people who know each other and in many cases are married or living together.

• Terrorists—groups driven by distorted beliefs, be they political, religious, or ethnic. The common perception is that the police or government does not negotiate with a terrorist, but that’s not necessarily true.