What Went Right: Interactional Strategies for Managing Crisis Negotiations during an Emergency Service Call

ABSTRACT

This article is a conversation analytic investigation of an emergency service call in which a hostage in a school shooting played a dual role during the ongoing emergency—the role of 911 caller and the role of de facto crisis negotiator. The analysis will show how the caller used techniques such as footing shifts, tone of voice shifts, self-disclosure, and active listening techniques (including continuers, questions, repeats, and paraphrases) to successfully keep the conflict from escalating, maintain the autonomy of the intruder, and negotiate his surrender while working in collaboration with the 911 call taker.

KEYWORDS:

• Conversation analysis
• crisis negotiators
• emergency service calls
• technologically mediated interaction

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Angela Cora Garcia

Angela Cora Garcia is professor of Sociology at Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts, with a secondary appointment in the Department of Global Studies. Her main areas of research are conversation analytic studies of interactions in mediation sessions, chat room interactions, and emergency phone calls to the police. Her textbook on conversation analysis, An Introduction to Interaction: Understanding Talk in Formal and Informal Settings was published by Bloomsbury Academic Press in 2013. She also conducts qualitative research using ethnographic and open-ended interview methods on a range of topics including the sociology of leisure and animal rescue organizations.