They came from up and down the east coast and even beyond to
celebrate and recognize a group that has more than “earned its
stripes” over the past 35 years. From Baltimore and North Carolina,
from Long Island and New Jersey, from Canada, and from the FBI,
Amtrak Police and the Dominican National Police, the more-than-240
federal, state and local law enforcement personnel descended on St.
John’s Queens campus on March 28 to celebrate the 35th anniversary
of the New York Police Department’s Hostage Negotiation Team
(HNT). Photo
Gallery Among them was New York City’s top cop, Police Commissioner
Raymond Kelly, who offered his congratulations to the team and
thanks to those involved in Hostage Negotiation, calling their work
“very important, very demanding and needing very special
skills.” The assembled law enforcers were welcomed by St. John’s Provost
Julia Upton, RSM,
Ph.D., who gave an overview of the University and also thanked
NYPD again for their presence and assistance last year during an
emergency situation at St. John’s in which a student enrolled in
the NYPD Cadet Program (Chris Benson, who happened to be in the
audience) disarmed a student with a rifle. Associate Professor
Antoinette Collarini-Schlossberg, Ph.D., who helped to
coordinate the event, introduced HNT Commanding Officer Lieut. Jack
Cambria and shared her thoughts about the relationship that exists
between NYPD and St. John’s. “Our [St. John’s] Criminal Justice undergraduate program is a
sponsor of the
Cadet program and I believe it’s another one of the symbols we
have of our relationship with the NYPD in particular and with law
enforcement in general. Our commitment here at St. John’s is to
educate the next generation for the criminal justice system.” Criminal Justice Professor
Recognized
Featured in the 35th anniversary film, 35 Years and Still
Talking (the group’s motto is “Talk to Me”), that premiered at
the celebration, and seated on the dais with Commissioner Kelly and
current and former HNT commanding officers, was St. John’s
Associate Professor of Criminal Justice
Harvey Schlossberg, Ph.D., founding Director of the NYPD
Psychological Services Unit and co-founder of the HNT-NYPD.
Dr. Schlossberg is unofficially recognized by the NYPD as the
“Father of Hostage Negotiation Systems.” Schlossberg, who is married to Collarini-Schlossberg, was the
first person approached by NYPD Cheif Simon Eisdorfer in late1972
to create guidelines for handling hostage situations. Cheif
Eisdorfer had recognized that it was only a matter of time before
the sort of criminality that had just played out at the Summer
Olympics in Munich—11 Israeli athletes and a Munich police officer
were held hostage and then massacred by Palestinian terrorists from
the Black September Organization—would occur in New York City.
Those slaughters took place following more than 24 hours of tense
hostage negotiations that ultimately failed. As the founder and head of the department’s Psychological
Services unit and the first NYPD detective-psychologist,
Schlossberg was the logical choice to undertake the task. He was
asked to look at not only Munich but situations that had occurred
closer to home such as the Attica Prison riots and the Dog Day
Afternoon incident. Retired Captain Frank A. Bolz, also a co-founder of the unit,
recalls that Eisdorfer’s move made a lot of sense. “It’s the media
capital of the world, we have the United Nations, we have Wall
Street. Cheif Eisdorfer had the vision to put people together
including the new Psych Services [headed by] then-Detective Harvey
Schlossberg, with contributions from the already-existing Emergency
Medical Services, the Police Academy, Patrol and the Detective
Division.” Despite Schlossberg’s objections that he was used to dealing
with patients “one-on-one,” Eisdorfer told him to “do it
anyway.” The resultant system and methods that he then created with
Captain Bolz has, according to Commissioner Kelly, “set the
standard for law enforcement around the world.” “What impresses me most in 35 years,” Schlossberg says, “is that
the same principles I used are being used around the world and
they’re just as successful and accurate today. The system of
understanding human behavior remains the same today and over the
past 35 years and probably will stay the same for 35 years to
come.” While Schlossberg spent several years with HNT, including Dr.
Collarini- Schlossberg says, a few episodes of dodging bullets, he
is no longer involved in hostage negotiation. He has served as
Cheif Psychologist at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
and Cheif Psychologist at the Police Department of the City of Rye,
NY. He continues to lecture around the country and across the
globe, and is the author of a number of publications, including the
highly acclaimed Psychologist with a Gun. Focus on St. John’s
Now, however, his focus is on St. John’s. In his courses on
terrorism and international terrorism, he instructs students on the
psychodynamic changes that occur in the mind of a terrorist and
discusses hostage-taking as a form of problem-solving. In addition,
with Collarini -Schlossberg, he is” working together to create an
international institute to explore academic and research
applications particularly in psychology for use in the criminal
justice system. This is part of the St. John’s graduate and
undergraduate criminal justice program.” “At this point, we are still in the formulation stage,”the
criminal justice professor explains, “and would like [the
University] to be recognized as a leader in innovative approaches
to criminal justice issues. Such issues as terrorism may easily
lend themselves to understanding aberrant behavior within a
political setting rather than focusing on group identity, which is
frequently created by media blitz. However, we would be
readily available to consult on issues in progress with criminal
justice agencies, which we have done continuously. The saving
of human life and community well-being and sharing knowledge have
always been and will remain our important focus.” |