Series Of High-Profile Standoffs In The 1970s Sparked Team's Creation

NEW YORK (CBS 2) — For 40 years the NYPD’s Hostage Negotiating Team has been responsible for saving thousands of lives, while coming face to face with life-and-death situations.

...“It was 47 hours in John and Al’s Sporting Goods store in Brooklyn in 1973. It was that final incident, ultimately, in a series of four that led to the department saying, we have to have detectives trained as hostage negotiators,” Cambria said.

In response to that series of standoffs the NYPD formed its hostage negotiation team. That team recently invited CBS 2 inside of its special operations command vehicle, where modern technology has improved the odds of coming out on top during a tense hostage situation.

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