{"id":71618,"date":"2025-12-04T21:51:24","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T21:51:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/71618\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T21:51:24","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T21:51:24","slug":"lee-county-sheriffs-team-trains-for-crisis-negotiation-with-real-scenarios-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/71618\/","title":{"rendered":"Lee County sheriff’s team trains for crisis negotiation with real scenarios | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

In February 2024, a tense situation unfolded at the Bank of America in Fort Myers. Lee County Sheriff’s hostage negotiators spent nearly two hours negotiating with a man<\/a> holding two hostages. They aimed to ensure the safety of the hostages, law enforcement, and the hostage-taker. However, the situation ended with a well-timed shot from the SWAT team.<\/p>\n

WINK News security analyst and retired FBI crisis negotiator Richard Kolko, along with photojournalist Matt Hensley, were invited to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office negotiation team training.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a recent training exercise, the team responded to a simulated jumper on the roof of a high-rise in Lee County.<\/p>\n

“This was only training,” said Detective Paul O’Leary, a CNT team member and role player for the exercise.<\/p>\n

“If our negotiators are successful when they do a good job, you know, over time, just using a variety of communication skills and negotiating techniques, you know, we can kind of, you know, call it, talk them off the ledge,” said O’Leary.<\/p>\n

Detective Nola Galloway, commander of the 13-person team, emphasized the team’s primary goal.<\/p>\n

“Our primary goal as a negotiator. We want the person to surrender or come out peacefully through communication,” said Galloway.<\/p>\n

The negotiators come from every division in the sheriff’s office and train using many scenarios, often based on real-life incidents.<\/p>\n

“Empathic meaning put yourself in their shoes, what are they going through, why are they feeling this, why does this person feel they have no way out,” said Galloway about the importance of empathy and active listening skills.<\/p>\n

The Lee County Sheriff’s negotiation team is highly trained in de-escalation, crisis resolution, and coordination with other units, including the SWAT team. The team regularly responds to calls, with most involving barricades or standoffs.<\/p>\n

“95% of all incidents between law enforcement and people in crisis are resolved by negotiation, not tactical resolution,” said Galloway.<\/p>\n

Sheriff Carmine Marceno praised the value of a highly trained CNT.<\/p>\n

“The crisis negotiations team, the behind-the-scenes heroes that you really don’t see much right are the ones that are successfully negotiating to save lives. And again, de-escalation is our top goal and safety,” said Marceno.<\/p>\n

After successfully talking down the simulated jumper, Commander Galloway expressed satisfaction with the team’s performance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In February 2024, a tense situation unfolded at the Bank of America in Fort Myers. Lee County Sheriff’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[33968,209,211,210,1598,7692],"class_list":["post-71618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-bank-of-america","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-law-enforcement","tag-lee-county-sheriff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}