The Police and hostage situations

At the moment the state of roleplay from the police in hostage situations is awful from what I have seen and heard from others. I think a lot of officers on the server forget who/what they are meant to be roleplaying. I see it happen way too often where officers breach a hostage situation and the hostage ends up dead or critically injured, they then will make up excuses as to why they breached. For example, "there were only two of you" or "we couldn't see the hostage" etc etc even if the hostage has clearly been shown to the officers. IF a hostage ends up dead or critically injured due to police breaching, when there was no immediate threat to the hostage or other members of the public, there is absolutely nothing the police can say or do that will make them right in the situation when they have clearly not valued the life of the hostage.



The above comes directly from the Surrey & Sussex police. It should go without saying that the priority of any strategy is the safe release of the hostages, however again and again police on the server will breach a hostage situation after being told "If you breach, we will kill the hostage(s)" or whatever it may be. It is like people have mentioned before, they seem to just want to WIN WIN WIN rather than protect and serve the public. I understand there may be rare occasions where a breach is necessary, (where applicable), however I am talking about all the times when a hostage is clearly at knifepoint/gunpoint, shown to the police and then the officers being told that if they breach the hostage(s) dies. I have even seen it where the hostage(s) will tell the officers that they are unharmed and being fed etc, but then police breach and that very hostage ends up dead or severely injured which could have easily been avoided.

What I really can't wrap my head around is why? Wouldn't the better roleplay come from getting a Negotiator involved and negotiating the safe release of the hostages etc? If I were to get caught and arrested during a hostage situation and the police valued the life of the hostage and took the correct steps I would probably be here praising the police, so don't think I made this because something didn't go my way. I just believe that the quality of roleplay from the police in hostage situations needs to drastically improve and for them to remember their purpose as police officers.

The  problem  I see here is, no mater how it ends, 1 side will, close to always, never be happy.

I have been involved on situations where the hostage was "prioritized " and when it wasn't. You need to be able to see from both sides before judge what the police does. But yes, the decision will always be made by 1 person and this person need to have A LOT of variables in mind.

One of situations I saw on the last couple of days, was when the hostage has in immediate danger an the police needed to Strom in. Now here, think carefully about this, what would be the "correct" course of action? Wait till the hostage takers kill the hostage? (No preservation of life) think this from a police perspective. 

Another situation I experienced also, was when the (fake) hostage was alone, the hostage takers had only melee weapons. The hostage takers were shouting for the him to run to them,  the police with a clear line of sight to the hallway was shouting to the hostage to run to the end of the room, if any of the hostage takers would make a move to the hostage, they would expose themselves and get shoted/tased wtv. The hostage,  make what the hostage takers said..for whatever reason, even when not being in direct danger anymore, with no one around.

I experienced a lot of situations where the script is always the same, "we want free passage, we want 30 secs ahead and we will leave the hostage inside". Can we also change this? It is like following a script. I know you want the police to change something,  but you can't expect the result to change if you keep adding the same ingredients.

Keep in mind I am speaking this from a cop perspective, but was never the one that faced that decision. Either way, an hostage situation needs to be taken serious.

What would be for you the "correct" outcome for it?

Bobinz said:

I experienced a lot of situations where the script is always the same, "we want free passage, we want 30 secs ahead and we will leave the hostage inside". Can we also change this? It is like following a script. I know you want the police to change something,  but you can't expect the result to change if you keep adding the same ingredients.

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Can't understand this logic you say its like following a script yet don't come up with a solution to the "script" also don't follow this logic because if you want to go by that side of things i can just say that the police procedures are basically a script xd see what i mean.

As for the hostage situations i have experienced really good ones and really bad ones it depends on the officer dealing with it, i would argue that if the hostage takers are using knives only, the more probability to breach but at the same time i know that regardless of the weapon its still breached anyway (currently) and the hostages end up dying like its no consequence because they can just get revived simple.

I understand you want more vatiety as a cop but at the same time what other variety do you want? The only thing that could be done diffrent is a full on RP bank with documents and stuff and even those turn into shootouts in the end and if people start doing that as a "meta" it will come back to being the same thing over and over.

Again i feel like you saying that its like a script just looks like you look at other don't look at yourself at all if you think crims don't deal with the "script" from the opposing side i am sorry to say but we are in diffrent servers.

This is me but i love a good chase and to be honest with GTA being imo one of the best games to use your vehicles it only enhances the experience.

PS: I am not complaining about the cop script or whatever its what they are suposed to do same as crims are suposed to take people hostage to rob banks or life invader.

i'll admit it's an issue i have seen and have myself gotten rather annoyed over. I play cop nothing else and i'd have to agree firearms have seen breach when hostages have knifes to them and guns and 8 to 10 out of times the hostage dies because firearms breached with no real reason to and disregarded the hostages life, there have been some cases where they haven't breached but firearms breaching is more common than letting the hostage takers leave the area and starting a pursuit which is more fun for both parties than just ending it with dead cops criminals and an unnecessary death of the hostage. its something that needs to change and the mentality of firearms in this kind of situation needs to change they are there to restrain someone with more force than the common copper but the gun in their hands is mostly always the first choice of use of force. its the CTSFO that are the ones that take the shot when it's necessary.

but somethings need to change and firearms need to remember the NDM and when their actions get a hostage killed then that's on them for not properly assessing the situation.

Bmav said:

Can't understand this logic you say its like following a script yet don't come up with a solution to the "script" also don't follow this logic because if you want to go by that side of things i can just say that the police procedures are basically a script xd see what i mean.

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What I meant was,  the hostage takers are the ones creating the scenario there also the ones to make the demands. And it always go to the same when there are hostages involved.
And police procedures are not a hard written script, but as showned before, we need to be aware of certain things, like the hostage life.

I dont desagree with you, there is an issue. Just saying that, imo, is not only 100% police fault

Bobinz said:

Another situation I experienced also, was when the (fake) hostage was alone, the hostage takers had only melee weapons. The hostage takers were shouting for the him to run to them,  the police with a clear line of sight to the hallway was shouting to the hostage to run to the end of the room, if any of the hostage takers would make a move to the hostage, they would expose themselves and get shoted/tased wtv. The hostage,  make what the hostage takers said..for whatever reason, even when not being in direct danger anymore, with no one around.

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I can see what you mean about having to look at it from both sides but with what you said above, that is exactly a situation where I would be more understanding. This is why I mentioned in my original post that I can understand police having to breach on rare occasions like the scenario you mentioned. As I also said, I am talking about all the times the hostage is being treated well, shown to police etc yet they still breach and the hostage(s) end up severely injured or dead which otherwise would not of happened have the situation been dealt with via negotiation.

This is very situational, and does depend on the officers and whats going on. From my experience, the decision to breach is usually only made with the genuine thought that the hostage will be safe, obviously its a game, doesn't always work out that way, but if you take the steps to make tactical options during negotiations extremely difficult then a breach wont happen.

I have seen people complain that we have breached when they are holding a hostage at life invader that had 1 person at the fornt door negotiating and one upstairs with the hostage, both with knives. We snuck in from the back and crouched towards the stairs and we where seen and exposed by the guy at the front door who had seen us through third person. We quickly headed up the stairs and pointed guns at the hostage taker, creating a standoff which was swiftly ended as the hostage taker stabbed the hostage. If the hostage takers had ziptied doors or even had one other person to keep watch, we never would of breached, likewise if the guy at the front had not had seen us around a corner in third person, the hostage would have lived. In fact I think OP may have been one of the hostage takers.

From all the lifeinvaders I have attended, or just general hostage situations, generally speaking its 30% of the time breached by firearms. Similarly I have seen hostage situations at lifeinvader instantly breached due to the actions of hte hostage takers. Repeated threats to harm the hostage, taking hostages during negotiations and other acts can cause the police to breach. Ultimately these situations only exist for both sides to have fun, with nothing to be gained for the crims. Futhermore, the outcome is not that important, obviously some people like a chase, others like to outsmart the police, shoot/stab, create a different and fun rp situation or just like the reward of getting away. You wont always get the outcome you want, police or crim and the majority of complaints about police breaching stem from this. Don't get me wrong mistakes are sometimes made and those issues should be raised in RP. Changes have been and are being made to firearms training to integreate negotiation and operational command of these situations which will reduce the mistakes and improve consistancy. Police previously have had no training for negotiating, and people just try to use common sense.

Having a hostage is not a free pass to be lazy and relaxed, you need to consider what you can do to make the use of force entirely undesireable. Strategic positioning of the hostage and hostage takers, how big of a threat you posess to the hostage and police ( 1 person with a knife within range of a hostage could easily be taken down ), entry and exits points and sealing them and watching them, and what type of police and how many are positioned at various points. 

Likewise, make the situation interesting for Police and give good RP, this will reduce the likelihood of you being breached. There is atleast 1 lifeinvader robbery a day, create a story of who what how why where. Turning up to a lifeinvader only for it to simply be we have a hostage, we want free passage out of here, the end. This gets exhausting very quickly and immediately highlights to you that the only reason they are there is for the pursuit.  There needs to be an in RP reason for you to be there otherwise its just glorified baiting.

Another consideration that is often entirely missed when this argument is made is that hostage takers simply wont value their lives in a breach, I dont have a problem with it but I have seen countless breaches where one person has a multitude of firearms officers aiming at them whilst they are threatening the hostage, with officers giving commands and warning that they will be shot if they attack the hostage. Because its a game everyones instinct is to go screw you you breached, stab the hostage and accept being shot down by police. In a real situation a criminal taking a hostage for material gain, is not going to stab a hostage knowing they will be shot if they do, that stuff is reserved for the mentally ill. Like I said I dont blame people for this reaction but to complain that the police didn't value the hostages life because you decided to strike them with no regard for your own life doesn't really make sense.

Police will already be dealt with internally if they clearly make the decision to breach were the likelihood of the hostage being hurt is extremely high, in every breach I have witnessed the decision has had some degree of merit i.e hostage takers being sloppy or risk of going in outweighs risk of not etc. Ultimately its a game and not real life, punishing people for making a slight error or unpredictable things happening due it being a game resulting in an injured hostage is just crazy. Do you want officers to be sacked or punished for someone being injured after police did not abort a dangerous pursuit aswell?

Richardd said:

We snuck in from the back and crouched towards the stairs and we where seen and exposed by the guy at the front door who had seen us through third person. We quickly headed up the stairs and pointed guns at the hostage taker, creating a standoff which was swiftly ended as the hostage taker stabbed the hostage.

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I appreciate the lengthy response and your input on the topic however all I can gain from what you said above is that you knew there was someone upstairs with the hostage so you decided to sneak in and chance the hostage's life. I was indeed involved in this incident so I can share my perspective. As you started coming up the stairs, I was alerted that you were coming so I had my knife right to the hostage screaming "Come any closer I will kill him", all officers then appear from round the corner so I stab the hostage. Just because the back door was free does not mean that it is an ideal situation to breach as I was always with the hostage and we made it clear numerous times if you were to breach we would execute the hostage even though we did not want such an outcome. You breached, the hostage was stabbed.

Richardd said:

Having a hostage is not a free pass to be lazy and relaxed, you need to consider what you can do to make the use of force entirely undesireable. Strategic positioning of the hostage and hostage takers, how big of a threat you posess to the hostage and police ( 1 person with a knife within range of a hostage could easily be taken down ), entry and exits points and sealing them and watching them, and what type of police and how many are positioned at various points. 

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If a hostage is involved, the use of FORCE should be entirely undesirable anyway. The threat we possess to the police should not matter at all, it is entirely the threat to the hostage's life. You say "1 person with a knife within range of a hostage could easily be taken down", BUT you should never be taking that risk especially if the hostage is being treated well and there is no immediate threat to their life. Once again this seems like Police completely forgetting what they are meant to be doing, when police arrive at a hostage scene the main goal should  be the safe release of the hostage, not risking it by thinking you can do some stealth mission that still ended with the hostage being stabbed. Arresting and catching the offenders should only be on your mind when the hostage is released unharmed.

Richardd said:

This gets exhausting very quickly and immediately highlights to you that the only reason they are there is for the pursuit.  There needs to be an in RP reason for you to be there otherwise its just glorified baiting.

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I don't really understand that comment as a lot of players are there to get the infected USB, not for the pursuit. You cannot assume someone's intentions. To me it seems to be the opposite, the police DO NOT want a pursuit so will breach and risk the hostage's life instead.

Richardd said:

Like I said I dont blame people for this reaction but to complain that the police didn't value the hostages life because you decided to strike them with no regard for your own life doesn't really make sense.

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I agree that a player should value their life at all times but police don't value the hostage's life and the hostage taker then doesn't value theirs, it is just pettiness. I imagine this is the excuse officers tell each other to make breaching seem like a reasonable solution. "We will go in, point guns at them and then they can't do anything". Also knowing that if the hostage is injured they will simply be revived. The main priority as I have said multiple times is for the safe release of the hostage(s) but you seem to skirt round that.

Richardd said:

Police will already be dealt with internally if they clearly make the decision to breach were the likelihood of the hostage being hurt is extremely high, in every breach I have witnessed the decision has had some degree of merit i.e hostage takers being sloppy or risk of going in outweighs risk of not etc.

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No matter how many people are involved, If there is someone stood with a Hostage, shown that hostage to police and then proceeded to tell them they have no intention of harming them, the police should just wait and negotiate the situation. If the hostage confirms they are fine there is literally 0 reasons as to why police should breach in that case. Even if there is 1 guy on his own with the hostage, what is the point of risking it by breaching when the police could negotiate the situation wait it out for the safe release of the hostage. It seems that when police arrive there first thought is to check possible entry points and possible ways of winning the situation that does not involve a pursuit.

Yes the main priority for police irl is the safe release of hostages but it’s not the only priority. If we are basing this of real life negotiations would go on for hours/days and you would never be granted free passage to a getaway vehicle and the only 2 ways out of the situation would be surrender or tactical options would be used to attempt to save the hostage. Tactics such as distraction devices, bean bags, firearms etc are utilised often by uk police in these situations. Hostages tend not to get injured because it’s real life with consequences and real reactions not a rp game. 
 

we meet somewhere in the middle and consider all of our options, if you can’t be bothered to take steps to make tactical options a no go then don’t complain if they are used. 
 

also in regards to the reason behind doing lifeinvader, the point I’m making is that most don’t do it for the usb, and if you don’t provide rp around why your there what you want and why it just feels poor and looks like your only there for a pursuit.

do you honestly think police just want to shoot a couple of people with knives at range for the sake of it and ruleplay to justify it? If we shoot after breaching we then have to provide medical to all involved, whilst simultaneously conducting arrests, securing weapons and lock down the scene, organise medic response or in most cases organise transport to pillbox and sit guarding you in pillbox for 15 minutes whilst having baldies come in to stab and punch us. Much easier and fun for us to just take the pursuit. Instead we evaluate the situation and make decisions based on multiple factors, that way it’s not the same for every situation and we meet the mid ground between real life and gtarp. 

yes police will look for ways to end the situation without a pursuit, in rp why would we want to put everyone at risk in a high speed pursuit and give hostage takers a chance to get off free if we have other viable options? If you provide good rp in the situation then there’s incentive to draw it out into a pursuit even if tactical options are viable because we reward rp. 
 

police will exploit weaknesses and take opportunities if they are there, this happens irl and we do the same, if we breach it’s because we believe we can end the situation with the hostage safe. Instead of complaining about police breaching when there is weakness and opportunity to strike because a hostage could maybe get hurt, why don’t you just look at how your conducting the situation to prevent it being a problem for you in the first place? It’s really not difficult to buy 2 extra (find out in rp) when your planning a lifeinvader to seal entry points  or position yourselves in advantageous positions. Likewise when negotiating providing a decent rp story as to why your there is not difficult either. 
 

we do not like it when a hostage gets hurt, it’s not just a oh it’s fine they can get revived. Firearms officers are chosen from officers who actively engage to learn legislation, policing practice and demonstrate good policing skills. We are a team constantly trying to improve and better the quality of our policing. Every major situation is evaluated and looked at to see how we can improve. If a hostage is hurt it looks bad on us and we do care, sometimes it’s bad luck, sometimes bad execution or something else. 
 

We looked at the situation with yourself the other day and concluded that: The decision to breach was sound, we had few traffic units for a pursuit and side doors where left unguarded and unlocked. This allowed for a good opportunity for us to make silent entry and rescue the hostage with minimal risk. We only needed the person at the front to be distracted for 3 seconds to make it up the stairs unseen. The person at the front was behind a corner and was talking to the negotiator. If he wasn’t looking around the corner in third person we wouldn’t have been seen(I have no issue with third person being used). Once we had been spotted we ran up the stairs as we still had the surprise element and there was elevated risk to the hostage at that point. Once we reached second floor I think 2 mistakes where made: firstly hesitation, we had opportunity to shoot you immediately which would save the hostage from danger but we didn’t shoot for the sake of rp of a standoff. The second mistake was not calling the person at the front to move back and call out to signal compliance to buy abit of time and allow for organisation.
 

Everything that could of gone wrong with that breach went wrong - we had no access to ranged non-lethal due to a weapon locker bug, we where spotted by someone who in our view had no way of seeing us, being caught out caused slight hesitation in the group and the criminal who showed no sign of mental Illness with the hostage decided to sacrifice his life to stab the hostage. 

There is no point in having a firearms branch of the police that don’t practice and employ tactical options where reasonable. The entire purpose of the unit is to employ specialist tactics for major incidents and weapon crime. Our presence should be worrying for a criminal but the reality of gta mechanics, server rules, policing practice all mushed into one means that even with hours of training, practice, team building and communication etc. We will make mistakes and things will go wrong, we can’t and won’t win every time. The 2 options are: use tactical options where deemed reasonable and viable or never use tactical options because the hostage will always be at risk because it’s gta and unpredictable. If we choose the latter then criminals have full control over the police because we can’t risk any chance of injury to hostages. The bank would be robbed by groups of two everyday. 

Well i would agree with you if most of the breaches that happen didn't go "wrong" like you mentioned just for the banks for example i would say 1 out of 10 doesn't get breached and there is about 10 people next to the hostage on those situations and there are cameras confirming that from your side.

I already said i understand you are bored because it feels like its the same thing over and over but this goes both way if you think we don't get bored with the same stuff we get dealt with than you're just not looking both ways.

Both sides have boring parts of their "job" being it mining/Smelting to the police reports you have to do when processing people, it's unavoidable stuff that has to be done regardless.

But as for the hostage situations i might be in the minority but i can't understand why chases don't happen more often it would be more fun than the usual shoot each other stuff and you would still be at a huge advantage considering the resources you have like Drones/Npas/Spikestrips and man power and also vehicles considering the robbers are gonna be using local vehicles to get away that break in one hit.

At the end of the day risking the life of the hostage and your fellow officers by breaching for you is considered better than going into a pursuit that you could finish within probably 2 minutes.

As for the argument of banks being robbed by groups of 2 that would be dumb i already said before but i do agree there is some situations where its fine to breach and it is a situational thing for example all people having knives doing a bank with like 4 guys or 2 that would be a easy breach most likely but if the robbers have about 10 people 3 hostages and all with guns than sorry to say but thats a stupid breach realistically speaking and unfortunately this is what happens most of the time at least from experience even though its kinda of improving because sometimes not even negotiations happen and they just breach without any words basically. (if they are all in decent holding positions with the hostages).

I would say that there needs to be better judgement skills for when to breach and when not to breach but thats what i think because what it feels like most of the times now is that, breaching is the best because from how i think cops see it is:  "the hostage will just be revived regardless by NHS so why would we need to value the hostages life"

Richardd said:

we meet somewhere in the middle and consider all of our options, if you can’t be bothered to take steps to make tactical options a no go then don’t complain if they are used. 

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This alone explains it. So as its a game you meet in the middle, meaning that in certain situations IRL where Police would not breach, you would as its in-game yet you are meant to be following the same rules as UK Police.

Richardd said:

yes police will look for ways to end the situation without a pursuit, in rp why would we want to put everyone at risk in a high speed pursuit and give hostage takers a chance to get off free if we have other viable options?

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Because YOUR MAIN PRIORITY is the Hostage's life, I don't understand why that is so difficult to grasp. You call them "Viable" options but in my original post I literally said what situations I am talking about. When the hostage is clearly being held at knife/gunpoint, shown to the officers and being treated well. So you would rather risk the hostages life than take a high speed pursuit?

Richardd said:

police will exploit weaknesses and take opportunities if they are there, this happens irl and we do the same, if we breach it’s because we believe we can end the situation with the hostage safe

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Then why do 99% of the situations that I explained end with the hostage dead or severely injured? It is either that this is not true or the majority of the police force have awful judgement skills.

Richardd said:

The decision to breach was sound, we had few traffic units for a pursuit and side doors where left unguarded and unlocked. This allowed for a good opportunity for us to make silent entry and rescue the hostage with minimal risk

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But I had the hostage at knifepoint and as you were coming up the stairs  I was shouting "Come any closer the hostage dies", where you then proceed to come closer and the hostage is stabbed. You also say minimal risk but please explain to me how it was minimal risk when as soon as I saw any police the hostage would be stabbed, which literally happened. It cannot be considered minimal risk when the hostage ends up dead/injured. So once again, this must come down to the poor judgement skills of the officers on scene.

Richardd said:

The person at the front was behind a corner and was talking to the negotiator. If he wasn’t looking around the corner in third person we wouldn’t have been seen

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Even if you hadn't been seen, I had the hostage at the back with a clear view down the hallway, as soon as Police came round that corner the hostage would of been stabbed either way as we said over and over again that if you were to breach the hostage would die.

Richardd said:

Once we had been spotted we ran up the stairs as we still had the surprise element and there was elevated risk to the hostage at that point.

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You have just proven my point, by you guys breaching it literally "elevated risk to the hostage", you guys alone elevated the risk because if you had stayed outside and negotiated, would there have been an elevated risk to the hostage? NO. Also, there was clearly poor judgement once again as you did not have the element of surprise. I was told that you were coming up the stairs over radio, which is when I began shouting to stay back.

Richardd said:

There is no point in having a firearms branch of the police that don’t practice and employ tactical options where reasonable

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I completely agree but your view of "reasonable" is very much different to mine, clearly. When the hostage is being treated well and held at knife/gunpoint, as I said before , there is no reason for you to breach as the safe release of the hostage can easily be negotiated in such a scenario.

To conclude, I believe police prioritise looking for the best "tactical approach" as an excuse to breach rather than the safe release of the hostage, so we will have to agree to disagree.

Yes we meet in the middle, it’s a game at the end of the day, we can’t follow uk policing exactly, because it’s a game not real life. 
 

In-game we need to asses risk. Elevating risk is not necessarily a massive problem, it just depends on the level of risk and the context. Yes you have a hostage but you are also armed criminals who have taken a member of the public hostage at knifepoint. Giving you free passage would cause a high speed pursuit putting other members of the public in danger, you guys are also armed criminals who could harm the public if you exited the vehicle and went on foot. If you escaped you could take more hostages or hurt other people. We protect life and limb and a hostage is not more important than any other person you could injure. The low  risk of the hostage being stabbed on the breach going wrong outweighs the high risk of 2 knife men racing down the street at max speed potentially hitting pedestrians in broad daylight or crashing into a family car of 5 people, or if your lucky an escape and a high likelihood of further violent crime being committed by yourselves.
 

im just struggling to see your argument, you want police to do it exactly as real life, In regards to hostage cannot be harmed despite it being a game, whilst ignoring the fact in real life negotiations would revolve around your surrender and you wouldn’t ever be offered free passage. 
 

it just sounds like your upset you didn’t have the opportunity to get away in these instances, despite not  putting in the minimal effort that would help increase the likelihood of your escape. 
 

Seriously if you want an opportunity to escape, plan accordingly because if you just grab a random of the street and get a couple of knives and head to lifeinvader and not even think about what your doing, demand free passage with no other rp the same things going to happen to you. 
Most life invader negotiations will get free passage because there’s often 4-6 armed people, 2 hostages, doors sealed and guarded. With some sort of basic rp reason and story behind it. Making entry is almost never going to happen in that situation. 
 

why would you have the same negotiating power as the example above as 2 unorganised hostage takers, leaving multiple entrances open and not actively looking at 2 of them with one hostage guarded by one person. 

people have robbed lifeinvader and got away with the usb without hostages, just solely based on the rp stories they provided and police went along with it because it was enjoyable and effort was put in. 
 

plan it out, rp it out and your unlikely to be breached.

To anyone with a crim character reading this I’d appreciate some feedback and recommendations revolving around hostage situations other than hostage = no breach full stop. I’ll forward to firearms command to see if we can’t organise procedure that considers sensible suggestion of the civilian and criminal side if we get feedback.
 

Richardd said:

Most life invader negotiations will get free passage because there’s often 4-6 armed people, 2 hostages, doors sealed and guarded. With some sort of basic rp reason and story behind it. Making entry is almost never going to happen in that situation. 

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So just to confirm, you only value the hostage's life if there is 4-6 armed takers and more than 1 hostage? Interesting. It seems you only value the hostage's life if there is no option for you to breach, when it should be the opposite. You should value the hostage's life from the get go and only breach as a last resort.

Richardd said:

it just sounds like your upset you didn’t have the opportunity to get away in these instances, despite not  putting in the minimal effort that would help increase the likelihood of your escape. 

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You clearly have not read my original post as I explained that If police valued the hostage's life and we were caught another way, I wouldn't mind, I would be praising the police. Even if that meant getting arrested as soon as we released the hostage without the chance of a pursuit.

Richardd said:

why would you have the same negotiating power as the example above as 2 unorganised hostage takers, leaving multiple entrances open and not actively looking at 2 of them with one hostage guarded by one person. 

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With this it is clear you are still missing my point. Forget everything else for a minute, as Police YOUR MAIN GOAL is the the safe return of the hostage(s), you are literally saying here that you would happily breach if an armed taker had a hostage while telling police that if they were to breach the hostage would be killed. You keep just skirting around the point of the Hostage's life being your main priority. 

Richardd said:

To anyone with a crim character reading this I’d appreciate some feedback and recommendations revolving around hostage situations other than hostage = no breach full stop.

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More to show me you have not read my original post where I also state, "I understand there may be rare occasions where a breach is necessary, (where applicable), however I am talking about all the times when a hostage is clearly at knifepoint/gunpoint, shown to the police and then the officers being told that if they breach the hostage(s) dies." I really don't know how many times I have to reiterate this in one thread, you seem to just ignore that point. Never once said, "hostage = no breach full stop".

You  mention, "a hostage is not more important than any other person you could injure". So you admit to not valuing the life of the hostage as you are valuing the lives of all those that can be injured during a pursuit?

You also say "Elevating risk is not necessarily a massive problem". So you are telling me that its not a massive problem when you breach and then admit to "elevating the risk of the hostage" by doing so? Literally have admitted multiple times to not valuing the hostages life, there is nothing else I have to say on the matter. I am happy to agree to disagree, my intention with my initial post was not to cause an argument.

No, clearly the hostage life is not valued more or less, it’s that the likelihood of a breach ending in success when there’s 4-6 hostage takers with locked doors and 2 hostages is virtually 0, therefore free passage is likely to be negotiated as it is the least risky option.

as police my main priority is to protect life and limb,  not just the hostage but other members of the public and police aswell. 
 

Again I’ll reiterate the main situation you are referencing, a clear opportunity was presented to breach. If the officer in front didn’t hesitate and shot the  hostage would have been safe and the active threat to his life would have been neutralised.  The least likely outcome occurred in that situation. Furthermore it was extremely likely the hostage would not have been harmed with the sneak and distraction tactic we used. Negotiating with you and allowing a chase would have endangered more lives and it was deemed the lowest risk option to go in. 
 

yes it didn’t pan out in our favour but the clear rational was there. It was completely justified.

If the front officer fired straight away there would be no issue because the hostage was saved, instead the officer shouted orders and gave you a chance to talk, comply and create a standoff. You took that opportunity to stab the hostage and practically commit suicide just to spite us because we breached.

Also just because you say you’ll kill the hostage if you come in does not automatically make it so the risk is too high, for the risk to be there someone would have to be in a position that prevented us from getting in position/close enough  to take out the threat without the threat being alerted and given enough time to react. 

police will breach if you leave yourself open to it, put some thought into it and you won’t have this issue. Nothing will change about this. If police breach in the future, and there is no clear way that they would save the hostage due to the planning and strategy you have used and there no other factors regarding immediate risk to the hostage, then raise it in roleplay and it will be looked into. 

I mean, you say it was the least likely, but it happens 9/10 times. Just have some fun with a chase. You don't have to win every situation x 

To put my 2p on this situation into the mix,

I personally believe that even if there is an 'opportunity to breach' because ONE door is not being held, police shouldn't try for this "sneak attack" they are so hungry for. Just allow for the roleplay more often.

If there is a valid reason to breach, fair enough. For example if they are saying "we are gonna kill the hostage in 5, 4, 3. or you hear a stab or gunshot. But I don't see a reason to ruin someones roleplay because they dont have 4 people there, instead have 2. You are basically saying that you want people to overpower the police.

I once heard Connor say at the big bank that he "reckons he can outfire their pistols with his smg" and that they were going to breach. He KNEW that it would end in a gunfight, yet still did it.

The mentality is WIN WIN WIN at the moment, whereas criminals should win situations sometimes. You know you can still win if you beat them in a chase, right? That would make it fun for all parties.

Richardd said:

No, clearly the hostage life is not valued more or less, it’s that the likelihood of a breach ending in success when there’s 4-6 hostage takers with locked doors and 2 hostages is virtually 0, therefore free passage is likely to be negotiated as it is the least risky option.

as police my main priority is to protect life and limb,  not just the hostage but other members of the public and police aswell. 
 

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We can both agree on this the problem is out like @MobExesaid 9 out of 10 times its still breached even with the situation you mentioned or even more people than 6 (which is usually the case).

I don't know what situation @Sxdler01is talking of from his own experience, i am talking about what i have seen most of the time it just breach breach breach even when you have 10 people and 3 hostages with locked doors breaching still happens and this is what i am referring.

Bmav said:

We can both agree on this the problem is out like @MobExesaid 9 out of 10 times its still breached even with the situation you mentioned or even more people than 6 (which is usually the case).

I don't know what situation @Sxdler01is talking of from his own experience, i am talking about what i have seen most of the time it just breach breach breach even when you have 10 people and 3 hostages with locked doors breaching still happens and this is what i am referring.

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If I am completely honest, I personally think that firearms want the gunfight and breach hoping for it.

Anonymous Monkey said:

If I am completely honest, I personally think that firearms want the gunfight and breach hoping for it.

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Well to be honest guns keep getting added to cops so i am guessing its for the roleplay, 

Jokes aside it does feel like firearms are indeed hoping for gunfights most of the time but at the same time criminals get complained of doing the same which is kinda of hypocritical if you ask me. (not saying the gunfights that happen between crims these days are completly fine)

Bmav said:

I don't know what situation @Sxdler01is talking of from his own experience, i am talking about what i have seen most of the time it just breach breach breach even when you have 10 people and 3 hostages with locked doors breaching still happens and this is what i am referring.

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Yeah I agree. I did not mean for this thread to become focused on my specific situation, as even if that hadn't happened, I still see/hear about this kind of stuff happening all the time.