Text messages help resolve some standoffs with police

Police negotiator Andres Wells was doing all he could to keep a suspect from committing suicide after a gas station robbery and 100-mph chase. But the man kept cutting phone calls short and pointing his handgun at his head.

About 10 minutes after the last hang up, Wells' cellphone chimed. It was a text from the suspect.

"Please call Amie," the message said, followed by the number of the man's girlfriend.

Wells was taken aback. In three years as a negotiator with the Kalamazoo, Michigan, police, he'd always relied on spoken give-and-take, taking cues from a person's tone of voice, the inflections, emotions. He'd never thought about negotiating via text. "It had never even been brought up at one of our training" sessions, Wells recalled of the 2011 case.

With 6 billion text messages exchanged daily in the United States alone, law enforcement officers are increasingly being called upon to defuse violent, unpredictable situations through the typed word. Experts say it's happened enough in the last five years to warrant new, specialized training.

"It's not the preferred method of communication in a crisis, but if it's the only way that we have, then we'll engage," New York State Police spokeswoman Darcy Wells said.

Red Bank, Tennessee, police Chief Tim Christol includes texting in his sessions and has published articles on the topic.

Christol said many of the typical skills officers employ to get people talking don't always translate, things such as emotional labeling -- telling someone "I hear sadness" or "You sound angry." "We're losing those verbal cues that we want to listen to to help us decide where this person is -- if they're manic at the time, if they're in a state of depression," Christol said. "Words are only 7 percent of communication."

In Kalamazoo, Wells used Cook's text about telling his girlfriend the truth as a way to show empathy and build trust. He texted that he understood the unemployed veteran was trying to provide for his girlfriend and daughter when he robbed the gas station.

There was no response.

"Do you need anything? Water? Food?" Wells tried after several unanswered texts.

"Water," Cook wrote.

Wells asked Cook to roll down his window so an officer could toss a bottle of water into his SUV, which was disabled by tire-popping spikes laid by police.

"This guy throws like a girl," Wells texted, fishing for Cook's state of mind.

"Thanks. He does throw like a girl," Cook wrote afterward.

Then a smiley face.

It was the cue Wells had been waiting for, proof Cook had relaxed enough to perhaps resume talking by phone, which had been the goal all along. "Can I call u?" Wells then asked Cook.

"OK," Cook replied. He surrendered 15 minutes later.