Cop 'talks' online to suicidal teenager

The successful real-time negotiation by Sgt. Tony Delgado is an example of how police are increasingly going online to solve crimes and defuse potentially volatile situations.



A Fremont police sergeant got on a computer and used instant messaging to persuade a distraught 16-year-old boy barricaded in his house not to commit suicide, authorities said Friday.

The successful real-time negotiation by Sgt. Tony Delgado is an example of how police are increasingly going online to solve crimes and defuse potentially volatile situations.

"We're not afraid to experiment with technology. There's a lot of usage of the Internet," Fremont Police Chief Craig Steckler said Friday, noting that over the last three months, 25 percent of the department's reports of crimes came via e-mail.

At about 9 p.m. Thursday, a young woman called Fremont police to report that her 16-year-old ex-boyfriend was despondent and had threatened suicide while sending her instant messages, or IMs, said Fremont police Detective Bill Veteran.

Instant messaging is different than e-mail in that it allows users to communicate in real time, with both parties seeing each line of text right after it is typed.

Fremont police went to the boy's home near downtown, but he refused to answer the door, Veteran said.

Delgado, an overnight patrol sergeant who is a trained hostage negotiator, went to the girlfriend's home in Fremont's Warm Springs neighborhood. From her computer, Delgado initiated an IM conversation with the boy.

"The kid eventually agrees to come down and talk to the officer," Veteran said. The boy was taken to Washington Hospital in Fremont for a psychiatric evaluation. Delgado was not available for comment.

In Fremont, police have been on the forefront of using the Internet as a crime-fighting tool, taking crime reports online and, in accordance with Megan's Law, showing the general area of sex offenders' homes on maps on its Web site.

"To my knowledge, it's the first time that we've actually done a real- time (computer) negotiation," Veteran said. "I'm sure it won't be the last."

Police said the method of communicating with a barricaded person depends on the circumstances. In this case, "this was the most practical way at the time," Veteran said.

Law officers are trained to be prepared for anything when it comes to negotiating. In 1998, an Alameda County sheriff's deputy and a sign-language interpreter used their hands to help persuade a deaf man holding his 7-month- old son hostage to surrender.

And with the increasing popularity and ease of the Internet, officers now have another tool in their arsenal to resolve tense standoffs, police say.

"Could I see us using that medium in the future? Yes," said Petaluma police Officer Matt Thomas, a member of the board of directors for the California Association of Hostage Negotiators.

"If that medium was available, we would probably consider using that first before we went into the house," Thomas said Friday.

Police have sometimes been accused of moving too slowly to resolve standoffs, as was the case when the California Highway Patrol waited 13 hours before forcibly removing a suicidal man on the Bay Bridge last year.

But with instant messaging, there's direct communication -- and in the case of the suicidal Fremont teen, everything was resolved within minutes, Veteran said.

E-mail Henry K. Lee at hlee@sfchronicle.com.