GEORGE Parker III had made up his mind - he wanted to die. On Jan. 29, after being convicted of federal charges including money-laundering, the lawyer and former Honolulu deputy city prosecutor fled the courtroom. He hid in a downtown office building and tried to overdose on antihistamines and rat poison. Negotiating through
a crisis situationWhen that didn't kill him, Parker decided on "suicide by cop." Translation: He wanted a police officer to end his life.
This phenomenon is not unknown on the mainland. Distraught people intent on dying go through the motions of threatening a police officer so that they will be shot to death.
In Parker's case, he wrapped a jacket around his cellular phone and held it against his head like a firearm, while popping in and out of a downtown alleyway. At one point in the eight-hour standoff, he told negotiators to get the snipers ready, recalls HPD Lt. Karen Kaniho. He was coming out.
Kaniho and three other negotiators, however, thwarted Parker's death wish and a police sharpshooter toppled him - but with three nonlethal rounds from a gas gun.
Parker is alive today and awaits a sentencing hearing in an Illinois prison, thanks in part to HPD's crisis-negotiating team.
This elite 10-person squad, led by 37-year-old Kaniho, responds to highly charged situations ranging from hostage-takings to suicide attempts.
Last week on Alakea Street, the initial outlook was grim. "We started trying to contact Parker by bullhorn, but he wouldn't respond," says Kaniho. "We lowered a phone to him from the roof, but he wouldn't pick it up for hours. He didn't want to talk."
That's bad news, says Kaniho, because it signals a mind unwilling to consider the alternatives.
"One of the factors we look at is the number of losses suffered and, in his case, Parker had already been suspended from practicing law, had suffered financial losses and now he was looking at the loss of his freedom and his relationship with his wife and children," she says. "The more the losses, and the more severe, means high-risk indicators for suicide by cop."
Establishing unequivocal trust and stalling for time are the keys to successful negotiations, she explains. In Parker's case, taped telephone messages from his mother and wife - expressing their love and concern for him - probably had a powerful impact.
The tactic bought a reprieve: for Parker, a chance to calm down from his emotional state; for HPD negotiators, to steer the situation along a safer, saner route. It's stressful all around. "Most of our cases are life-threatening, and the price for failure is extremely high," says Kaniho.
YET the satisfaction of a job well done is just as rewarding. When lives are saved and no one gets hurt, relieved HPD negotiators hug and shake hands. Later, they meet to share feelings, go through a debriefing and try to wind down.
Even in hostage-takings where deaths do occur, HPD negotiators help to keep the losses minimal. For example, remember last February's image of smiling John Miranda holding a shotgun taped to hostage Tom McNeil's neck? Kaniho and company were able to stall Miranda long enough so that the tape eventually loosened, McNeil was able to twist away and police marksmen could do their job.
Miranda's fate was what Parker was hoping for but didn't get because of cops like Kaniho, armed with bullhorns instead of bullets.