Incident summaries to help your fellow negotiators

The Crisis Negotiator publishes incident summaries for the benefit of fellow officers. Often the lessons learned in one incident will help law enforcement anticipate potential problems in future incidents. Incident summaries for the Crisis Negotiator may be brief or in-depth, depending on the type of incident and the lessons learned.

We welcome your commentary and observations, so that others may learn from the tactics ― good and bad ― that were employed. This type of article does not require extensive writing experience. Often an informative article can be created from a written report. The staff of the Crisis Negotiator will provide editing expertise.

• Please include contact information and current law enforcement status of the writer. If desired, the name of the law enforcement agency and/or the exact locale can be eliminated from publication.
   
• Summaries must be factual. Provide only constructive criticism, the kind that is useful during any incident debrief.
   
• Photos are helpful as are charts or diagrams. In some situations, the staff of the magazine can improve on the hand-drawn diagrams submitted.

Incident summaries should be sent to the Editor, Crisis Negotiator, NTOA, P.O. Box 797, Doylestown, PA 18901.