Original subtitles

[projector clicking]

[♪]

[♪]

[man] I had a bad feeling about it.

My wife did. She didn't even know what we was gonna do.

She begged me not to leave the house that day.

Got in front of me at the door, pullin' on me, crying.

I said, "I'll be right back."

That was my last warning.

[traffic noise]

[man 2] Wintertime. January.

A very cold Friday night.

Two guys walk over to the counter,

ask me to pick up something from the bottom shelf,

I don't remember what it was.

I picked it up and when I stood up,

the guy had a...

.25 automatic pointed at me.

Right on the gun counter there was

a picture of my daughter receiving her communion.

I says, "Take it easy,

I want to get home to see my family tonight."

The little guy had a handgun.

I'm lookin' at the gun and I'm sayin' to myself

that I thought it was a pellet gun.

Then he pulls the trigger and, bang, into--

and into the shelf.

I swore to myself at that point there

that if I get a chance to kill ya, I'm gonna kill ya.

-[indistinct chatter] -[sirens wailing]

[man on bullhorn] Come out with your hands up!

[sirens wailing]

[gunshots]

[man on radio] Okay, hold it!

[man] Get outta here quick!

[gunshot]

[♪]

[reporter] A story of violence

inside a sporting goods store in Brooklyn.

Four terrorists had been surprised inside the store

on Friday afternoon

when police arrived in response to a robbery alarm.

[man] It was a store with outdoors equipment

the usual camping stuff,

and then the guns.

The guns are what it was really all about.

They were people who wanted them,

and they took innocent people inside the store

and made hostages of them.

[♪]

[man] Holy crap.

Twelve hostages inside a sporting goods store

loaded with firearms.

This was the Titanic.

The moon landing.

I'm never gonna forget the siege.

It's permanently etched in your-- in your heart

and in your soul.

The lessons learned of this case

were so revolutionary for law enforcement.

Out of this tragedy, amazingly,

this is the birthplace of hostage negotiation.

[man] It's scary.

So cops usually wind up overreacting.

Police want to be macho.

Lob in the gas and storm the place.

"Kill 'em all! They're all evil."

No. I believe in talking.

Everything is resolvable by talking.

[Jerry Riccio] The leader, he wanted five shotguns.

They gave me a duffel bag.

12-guage ammo in the bag, I'm filling it up,

filling it up and filling up.

And I turned around, I said to him, I says,

"Can I ask you a question now? Who's gonna carry this bag?"

Couldn't even drag it.

He says, "You just keep filling it."

I filled it up, the guy grabbed it by the handle.

Can't move it.

You're not too smart.

[♪]

The only thing that stopped them from gettin' out is

someone outside called the cops.

There was a cop lookin' in the doorway.

When he seen the rifles,

the guys eyeballs, I'll never forget it.

[man] "Call for backup.

"Patrol units responding.

"Call on walkie-talkie.

N-[bleep] with a gun."

This had to be terrifying for her

to have to go through something like that.

For my mother to hear the cop say that.

To fear the cops.

She probably didn't even know

guns was in that building.

She wouldn't have gone in there.

My dad needed a wallet.

John & Al is right when you come off the train.

My mother paid for it.

Few more seconds,

my mother would have walked out that door.

The gunmen locked the door right in front of her face.

That's what it was.

A wallet.

So we had white police officers, mostly, uh,

on the inner perimeter.

So that might have been some considerations as well.

We thought we had four members of the Black Liberation Army

inside the store.

It was a very radical group,

very violent and dangerous group.

Many police officer assassinations under their belt.

Emotions are running high.

[man] The BLA was ambushing the police officers.

You had a blue uniform on, you were a target.

I was a rookie.

I remember like it was yesterday.

You're dealing with lowlifes that don't care.

They hate the police.

No.

They didn't know who we were.

I don't dislike police.

They thought all this crazy stuff about us.

They thought we were black revolutionaries.

We were not.

I worked for the Transit, selling tokens in the booth.

Dawud is a college student, outstanding artist.

Salih is a TV and radio repairman.

Mussidiq is a carpenter.

We're not unemployed, dope fiends,

and thieves and crooks.

We're squares.

I was terrified.

I was like an understudy to Shu'aib.

You know, he was like my mentor at the time.

You know.

He was living on his own, you know, I--

With his wife, you know, I was still with my mother,

using his situation as an example to follow.

On the way there, I was hoping somebody would,

like, just say, okay, like...

maybe we should, like, just scrap this and like, but, uh--

I didn't-- I couldn't come up with any, you know,

alternative solution,

so I just, more or less, went along with it, you know?

[♪]

A lot of regrets.

I observed one police officer in front of the store.

You don't need to take it any further, you know,

they're-- they're here, you know,

we-- we're through.

You know, we should have surrendered at that time,

but, uh...

my co-defendants tried to make an exit from the store.

That's when things went haywire.

[Shu'aib Raheem] We made that fateful decision.

To get these guns. To protect our families.

In retrospect, it was a fool's idea

to think we can get out the back door.

[door opening]

We opened the door.

[indistinct shouting]

There were cops everywhere.

[indistinct shouting]

Super hyper. Payin' attention to everybody.

Lookin' there, lookin' there.

Who's the good guy? Who's the bad guy?

Who do you trust?

How you gonna say, "Drop the weapon,"

but when you go to drop it, they tell you,

"Don't move. Freeze. Drop the weapon.

Don't move. Freeze. Hand me the gun."

You know, I mean-- What do you do?

I'm ready to surrender. You won't let me surrender.

That was how we perceived the situation.

I'm trying to comply,

passing off my rifle to this detective.

The other officers interpreted it as a threat

because they told me not to move.

That's what led to them firing the first shot.

Does it matter who fired first?

There are some people

that need a damn beating.

You know why? You can't talk to 'em.

You talk 'til you're blue in the face.

They want a physical confrontation.

That's what they want.

And that's their mentality.

And a guy like that needs his ass kicked.

New York City's always had a hard, ugly relationship

between the police and the people--

community of color.

All my life, police was killing black people.

I know-- I know for a fact...

that cops aren't racist.

Yet, there was this perception

that cops are gonna brutalize Blacks.

The police were seen as oppressors.

Corrupt.

Brutal.

[Jack Cambria] The police officer's stress is elevated

'cause you're always on.

When emotional levels are up in-- in a person,

then their rationality level is down.

It's kinda like that angle effect.

Emotion. Rationality.

Police officers become, sometimes, judge, jury,

and, uh, sometimes when the circumstances, uh,

you know, present themselves,

executioner.

There's this whiteness on the police department,

not properly trained,

fearful of being in neighborhoods

that they're not accustomed to being in.

And so, in that sporting goods store,

when they see a black man in a doorway...

emotions take over.

[gunshots]

[Jerry Riccio] The cops' bullets are pockmarking against the building

and I'm sayin', "Oh, my God, oh, my God,"

like I-- I gotta get hit.

From where they were shooting, it wasn't...

less than 15 feet.

[gunshots]

When one guy starts shootin', they all start shootin'.

You're nuts.

Firing away like crazy.

And the little guy pulls me back,

he steps up and fires.

You could feel the heat against my ribs.

-[gunshot] -[traffic noise]

[tires squealing]

[siren wailing]

I reached out and pulled the door in.

It was a miracle I wasn't hit.

Mussidiq was just standing there in shock.

I lifted his shirt up.

My hand was covered with blood.

Stomach wound, there's nothin' you can do.

If he didn't get attention, he was gonna die.

[gunshots]

[indistinct shouting]

[gunshots]

Bullets was flyin' all over the store.

All over the store.

The police knew they were hostages in there

and they-- and they, uh--

they elevated their fire to above the hostages' heads.

No.

They-- That's the first thing

one of the officers said afterwards.

"Well, we were shooting high."

I says, "You can tell that to somebody else,

you can't tell it to me."

The cops know there's customers,

and you're shooting into the store.

What are they, crazy?

Here's my head. Here's where the bullet was hitting.

The police department won't admit to

a lot of things that they did.

I was with Steve Gilroy. He was my partner that night.

He was a great guy to be with.

He was behind the L pillar.

[gunshots]

I looked over, I saw Steve laying on the ground.

[gunshots continue]

He was hit in the back of his head, which opened up his skull.

I saw part of his brain separate from his head.

[crackling]

[clock ticking]

[Al Sheppard] You grieve for the guy that gets killed or hurt, God forbid.

And then you want to go fuck somebody up over it.

The bad guy.

[indistinct chatter]

Anybody in the ghetto knows, if you shoot a cop,

they're gonna get you.

[police radio chatter]

[sirens wailing]

[Shu'aib Raheem] Salih found the radio...

and turned it on.

We were all listening to it.

And they said, "We have four members of the Black Liberation Army

surrounded inside a store."

Oh, S-H-I-T, that's what.

Oh, crap!

[indistinct radio transmission]

I know how they were thinkin' now.

They wanted blood.

I was petrified.

But I was gonna experience something much worse than that.

[static]

We heard it on the radio that we had inside the store.

[radio announcer] ABC News, Brooklyn, New York.

What happened here was a tragedy.

One gunman was wounded, apparently seriously.

One policeman was killed.

It was a stunned silence at first.

Then it was...

shock.

Everything changed.

We didn't even know a cop was even killed.

If you are responsible for a chain of events

that culminated in the loss of life of a human being,

there's no way to replace that life.

I'ma have to carry this sin.

Man, I cried like a baby in the bathroom.

After he shot him,

I think he said, "I killed that pig.

"I-- I offed that pig.

If he sticks his head out again, I'm gonna-- I'm gonna kill him."

And stuck his head out, shot him.

"I got that pig, I killed that pig.

Shot him in the head."

[Shu'aib Raheem] That was never said.

I was talking about a different officer who shot at me.

I said, "Man, there's this guy across the street, hold up."

You know, I-- Pew! And he took off and ran.

[exhales]

Well, that comment, "I'm gonna get this guy behind the pole,"

is what they tried to say, that the comment was made when Mr. Gilroy was killed.

I still don't know how he got hit.

We were hunkered down.

The van blocked that whole line of sight.

I can only imagine it was some type of ricochet

or whatever, or friendly fire.

I didn't have the right angle to see him.

I could only see the bar called the Oasis.

The cops were shooting all over the place.

[Shu'aib Raheem] He was shot in the side of the head.

Where'd that shot come from?

I don't know...

[sighs]

...what happened.

It don't really matter.

At the end of the day...

really, it doesn't matter.

Because none of that would have happened

if we hadn't been there.

[♪]

[Al Baker] It's losing a brother.

It takes a piece of you.

We're always criticized for the thin blue line,

or the "us and them,"

alienation that others have towards cops.

You really hate to discriminate against people

because their not cops,

but you know in your heart of hearts,

deep down where you live,

they don't get it.

[♪]

You know he's dead now.

You think of yourself, you think of your family,

you think of his family.

Goes through so fast.

But you know it's over.

It's almost like the end of the world to you.

[Brian Tuohy] You could have had breakfast with him,

and all of a sudden, he's gone.

Why am I here today?

It could have been me, but I can't think like that.

Nobody ever said, "How-- How are you doin'?"

or anything. No.

Today, I would be in a hospital for a week or so

being talked to.

But yeah, nothing-- nobody even spoke to me at all

about what happened.

[♪]

[Al Sheppard] The psychological dangers are much worse than the physical.

It will kill you. Eat you up.

A lot of cops have PTSD, alcoholism.

There's so many people I knew that committed suicide.

[Gerald Lefcourt] The head of the Intelligence unit said

there's as much as 10 percent of the police force

that are emotionally unstable.

Which was a shocking thing

for a leader in the police department to say.

[Jack Cambria] There's a stigma for many police officers

to come forward because of that strong macho image

that we are expected to portray.

It's a humiliation.

So they would rather just keep their--

their emotional issues internal,

and we know what happens with that.

[indistinct chatter]

[man on bullhorn]

[Shu'aib Raheem] Police were telling us everything was all right,

no one was hurt.

Lying to us.

Trying to lull us to sleep.

They were gonna kill us when we walked out the door.

Don't lie. Don't lie.

Crazy people aren't always stupid.

He knows when you're full of crap.

Now the trust is gone.

[♪]

[Jerry Riccio] By that time, you had another 500 cops.

Angry? Yeah.

If the cops were to burst in,

who are they gonna be shootin' at?

They wouldn't know where we are.

There was no cop negotiating comin' up close to the store,

"Look, we'll give you this, we'll do this for you."

We're all gonna die.

We're gonna shoot it out.

The hostages were all sittin' in there.

Every time the guy fired a shot,

the black girl named Fonnie would jump out of her skin.

[stammering] The-- The bang, the bang, the bang, the bang.

And she would--

Tears were goin'. Like everybody was cryin'.

I was young, I was 16 years old.

I went into shock from what I just witnessed.

Gunshots, the glass breaking.

Um...

people, you know--

Yeah, the sounds of gunshots,

uh, people, um, screaming in the store,

you know, we were-- we were-- we were screaming and...

the gunman who was injured was holding his abdomen,

moaning in pain.

His clothes were soaked through.

He was bleeding out.

[Jerry Riccio] The leader comes over to me and says,

"My man that's hit is in pain.

Give me a rag."

[water running]

They go in the bathroom, I wet the rag,

and I'm about to put the rag on the wound,

the little guy picks up the gun and puts it to my head,

stuck it underneath and...

I went as high as I could.

It doesn't take much for those triggers to go off.

Your head's gone.

[♪]

I'm tryin' to help ya.

And you're gonna put a gun to my head?

What kind of a person are you?

He was very impulsive.

Scary at times.

Mussidiq.

A loose cannon.

We was concerned about him exploding.

[Jack Cambria] When you get to the scene as a negotiator,

they're handing off the bomb that's already--

the fuse is already lit,

so we have to kind of try to defuse that.

We have an ever evolving approach

because we learn from mistakes.

Prior to 1973, we'd give the hostage taker

a set amount of time to surrender,

and if they did not,

they would be met with tactical force.

Guns.

[♪]

The first hostage negotiation team in the world

was formulated here in the NYPD

based on a series of events.

The first one was the Attica Prison riots back in 1971.

[Gerald Lefcourt] Such oppressive conditions.

There's no question,

there's terrible racism in the criminal justice system.

Rather than trying to resolve the crisis

or take down the tensions,

it's about winning and knockout punches.

It's about destroying your enemy.

That was Attica.

[man]

[men]

[♪]

[Jack Cambria] The highest authorities, all they do is tactics.

And when every problem is a nail,

then every solution has to be a hammer.

We're not gonna negotiate.

We're gonna go through that door.

[whirring]

[♪]

[gunfire]

-[indistinct shouting] -[clamoring]

[Jack Cambria] It was a bloodbath.

Forty-three individuals were killed.

Let's learn from those past mistakes.

Maybe we shouldn't do that again.

It didn't work the last time.

One year later, there was

the Dog Day Afternoon bank robbery.

[cheering]

Messy, unorganized. Very dangerous.

It was negotiated from the cuff.

There was no theory behind it. It was just, uh,

"Hey, come on out." "No."

"Come on out."

"No."

[no audible dialog]

Then, in September of 1972,

there was the Munich Olympics.

Palestinian guerrillas took Israeli athletes hostage.

Eleven Israeli athletes and coaches were killed.

Tragedy.

We have to do something.

This could very well happen here in New York City.

[birds chirping]

[woman] Hostage negotiation was a world problem

that had come under the microscope

for the NYPD.

And they were saying, "Here, go fix it."

[Al Baker] Harvey didn't look like a cop,

he didn't act like a cop.

The least ever macho dude, the least violent.

He was seen as fruity.

Not a back-slapper, "let's go for a beer" guy.

Pretty socially incompetent.

Academic, quirky.

Always using a funny story.

He has the Jewish sense of humor.

He's the consummate Jew.

He was a genius, oddball, psychobabble kind of guy.

[Harvey Schlossberg] Distrust.

They were checking on my advice to make sure it was okay.

Remember, this was all new.

This was all relatively new at the time.

I was comin' up with a whole bunch of theories.

All the pressures,

and all the anxieties that we talk about

which affect the criminal

also affect the cop on the scene the same exact way.

We have to reduce the anxiety

to get him out of that panic state.

[clock ticking]

[siren wailing]

[indistinct chatter]

Nobody is certain of what will happen

in this kind of situation.

Uh, I must say...

[Al Baker] When Police Commissioner Murphy

got to the scene that Friday night,

there was a dead cop two other cops shot.

The question is, "Can we stop them from killing the hostages?"

[Harvey Schlossberg] I was in a different room than they were.

A half a block away. A cleaning store.

I was in the room where you sweat and think,

"What the heck is gonna happen next?"

[Jack Cambria] Harvey was a traffic cop.

but he had his PhD in psychology.

He was called out to the scene.

Inside of a sporting goods store there's butane, ammunition.

The chief wanted to throw tear gas inside of the store,

but Harvey had to, you know, convince him that

that would not be the best approach.

You could start a fire with all that ammunition,

blow up the entire neighborhood.

The police are really worried.

They get angrier.

"Come out with your hands up or else."

It was the old Wild West.

If you get an open target, just shoot them.

I told the commissioner, "You get words going,

then you can calm 'em down."

Hostage negotiating?

Wh-- What are you talkin' about?

We don't-- We don't negotiate with criminals.

A cop became a cop for law and order.

Victory.

This is not the time for a Harvey Schlossberg.

This is a time for surprise,

violence of action,

direct lethal force.

[Al Sheppard] Hear this rumbling coming down Broadway.

It's like a dinosaur rumbling down the street.

Bum-bum-bum-bum-bum- bum-bum-bum-bum.

And I'm goin', "What the fuck is that?

Is that what I think it is?"

[rumbling]

[Shu'aib Raheem] Oh, Lord.

Did anyone committing

what we thought was a small robbery

ever anticipate

confronting a t-- [chuckles]

a tank?

[rumbling]

They were telling us that if we didn't come out,

they was gonna drive the tank right inside the store.

[Harvey Schlossberg] Oh, no, no, no, no,

that's the worst thing you can do.

An ultimatum is trying to frighten them into surrendering,

and most people in a situation like that

don't get frightened.

-[gunshots] -That just angers them.

They may go off the deep end.

[gunshots]

[Al Baker] The bad guys, they're bouncin' rounds off the tank.

Four guys who just killed a cop and have 12 people at gunpoint

in a-- in an ammunition-filled environment,

and you're gonna-- you're gonna play hardball with them?

I don't think so.

[indistinct chatter]

[police radio chatter]

[man on radio] It's 2:54 in Midtown.

I'm Drew Scott, WXLO News,

with the top stories of the hour.

A standoff continues on the shivering streets

of the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn

between the cops and robbers of that sporting goods store.

[♪]

[Jerry Riccio] The leader comes over to me.

I says, "Want a cup of coffee?"

He says, "You'd make me a cup of coffee?

I'm holding you hostage."

I says, "Well, if you look out the door,

got about 5,000 guys holdin' you hostage."

And he says, "I'll have a cup of coffee."

If he was a customer in the store,

he would have been a decent character.

I spoke to them straight out.

No neighborhood type conversation like, you know, like,

"Hey, bro! You're doin'--" None of that.

Nobody wants to hear that shit.

I talked to him like I was talkin' to another person.

Not my bro.

He wasn't my bro.

We're all in a mess down here.

Everybody's cryin', everybody's separated.

I says, "If you want to keep an eye on us,

take us upstairs to the Boy Scout department."

We all go upstairs, no one knows what I have.

I got a 9mm Smith & Wesson.

Gun's in the desk.

In the dark, I take my keys out.

[mimics coughing] Cough a little bit, turn it.

[mimics coughing]

Now I got the loaded 9mm.

Who do I shoot first?

The leader.

He would have been the guy

that might have been able to do something.

The number three guy second.

The quiet guy, leave him to last,

because if he seen his friends goin' down,

he would turn to mush.

[Al Baker] It's an explosive situation.

We want to control that perimeter.

They had the barricades up,

but people are out there yelling and screaming.

[crowd noise]

[♪]

[Brian Tuohy] "Shortly after midnight, a melee breaks out.

"between police and a group of 40 youths.

"At least one cop seen clubbing youths.

Three teenagers arrested, one bleeding profusely."

"These are revolutionary brothers in there, man.

Power to the people!" You know, "Yeah, man, yeah!"

♪ War... ♪

♪ Is coming ♪

♪ I... ♪

♪ Can feel it in the air ♪

[Shu'aib Raheem] Every time they heard a shot from the store,

they were cheering.

'Cause we stood up to the police.

[♪]

♪ Preachers are preachin' ♪

[Al Baker] As a commander, you're gonna have to factor in

the crowd reaction if we make entry.

And suspects die,

this thing is gonna end in a fire-and-brimstone manner.

It's a complete powder keg.

Now what do you do?

Do anything you can to make a conversation.

You must get them to talk.

But they have a problem.

They ripped the phone wires out.

There's no way to talk.

[Shu'aib Raheem] They told us to communicate by flashing lights.

Hit once for "no" and two for "yes."

Are there people inside the store?

Bang, bang. Yes.

Are any of your people hurt and need medical attention?

Yes.

They asked us to release one girl.

We asked Fonnie Buckner.

[Alice Buckner] My mother loved to laugh.

Vibrant. Full of life.

Get out there, take her classes, go to work every day.

I was shocked when she started buying skirts and dresses.

I'm like, "Mom, what's goin' on?

She's like, "Got a promotion."

Mm-hm.

For New York Life. She loved that job.

And they were promoting her.

Until this happened to her.

And once this happened,

it was like...

she went into a shell...

[Rosemary Catalano] We were behind the cabinet

in the Boy Scout area.

I felt for her,

so I kind of took on the role to try and keep her calm.

She was crying and shaking

and just could not...

uh, just could not compose herself.

She was the most afraid.

So just tri-- tried to get her to go.

She refused to go out.

She didn't trust the police.

She wanted to stay with us.

[♪]

[man]

[Shu'aib Raheem] That's when we sent out

one of the people in the store.

Goin' through my mind inside,

man, I've done everything I can

to try to talk to you people, man,

come on, man.

Shit's f-ed up, you know?

Give us a chance to surrender, man.

[clock ticking]

I'm Drew Scott, WXLO News,

with the top stories of the hour.

The stand off continues between the cops and robbers

at that sporting goods store.

[indistinct chatter]

[Harvey Schlossberg] A think tank was formed at the police headquarters.

Different agencies.

I was there.

Police tend to be conservative.

Nobody wanted change.

They all believed if you gave me the right gun

with the right bullet, I can put everybody out.

But I don't think it works that easy.

That's a Hollywood thing.

[Jack Cambria] Must have been the hardest thing for Harvey

to change an ingrained belief system.

These staunch critics.

"Now we're gonna talk?

"To these individuals?

We're not social workers."

The most difficult thing in the world to change is a culture.

[indistinct dialog]

[Al Baker] You take your Pat Murphy.

Notorious book guy.

Liberal, progressive police commissioner.

Are you following his orders? Absolutely.

Do you respect him? No.

Very grateful for that.

[Al Baker] He was hated. He was a bookworm.

Not a warrior from the ranks.

[Al Sheppard] He was a pantywaist.

He had no balls.

All prim and proper.

He's puckering his ass

'cause if something goes down wrong,

he's gonna be holding the bag.

[Harvey Schlossberg] I didn't think they would change their attitude.

I truly believe the only reason they called me

was because they realized someone has to be responsible.

If it goes bad,

they're gonna blame Harvey.

But I believed police could actually influence people,

and get them to do things

without bullying and force and threats.

I told 'em what I thought.

[Jack Cambria] The commissioner agreed with him.

We're not a team of assassins.

Harvey succeeded.

[Al Baker] Commissioner Murphy made that decision,

establishing hostage negotiation as the way forward.

[man] Commissioner, can you tell us the sequence of events?

I think Deputy Commissioner Ward, who was closest to that,

could say a word about it.

[indistinct chatter]

All right, the strategy at all times

was to open lines of communication

with the people on the inside.

I was in the armored personnel carrier.

[Toni Schlossberg] Ben Ward heard Harvey's trainings

He would say, "If Harvey says to do it the way,

this is what we're going to do.

Harvey would be there to coach.

He would not be the guy on the phone.

He would guide what was happening.

[indistinct chatter]

[police radio chatter]

[phone ringing]

I was home with a young baby.

Ben Ward called,

asked would I come out to Brooklyn.

I was floored the police wanted me,

their enemy, to help.

I'm a lawyer for people who are fighting the state.

I had just finished the Panther 21 case,

which had as a main allegation blowing up police precincts.

It was a shock.

But then again, Ben Ward was different.

A black man in the middle of all of this race conflict,

and he had an understanding of us.

the Panthers.

I always had a fond feeling for him.

And I think it was mutual.

[indistinct shouting]

[Al Baker] Lefcourt was hated.

He was a radical lawyer.

Enemy of the police.

Why are we kowtowing to these people?

[Al Sheppard] Friggin' outraged.

Allowing the attorney to come in and kiss their ass,

and "I'm gonna represent you," you know,

and-- and everything's gonna be hunky-dory,

this'll be okay.

[Gerald Lefcourt] They asked whether we could

get them to pick up a walkie-talkie.

[indistinct radio chatter]

[man] Easy. Easy. Easy.

[man on bullhorn]

[gunshots]

-[man] Okay-- -[gunshots]

[gunshots continue]

Now they want to talk.

They puttin' these strange people on the speaker.

We weren't in a speakin' mood because they were in a tank.

I could not believe I was being fired upon.

[Gerald Lefcourt] Nothing.

[indistinct chatter]

[♪]

When I went outside to get the walkie-talkie,

I see more cops

than I've ever seen in my life.

I see people all on the side streets.

[indistinct chatter]

As soon as I walked out the door I knew,

I could have waltzed out of the store.

Escaped.

I thought about it.

I got a family.

Wife.

I thought about my daughter.

It's hard to figure.

Especially if you ran away and people got killed.

Then you gotta live with that afterwards.

They said, "Everybody except for Rosemary was a minority."

I says, "No, no, no, no.

"What everybody in this store was, was a human being.

I'm not abandoning a human being."

[Shu'aib Raheem] The walkie-talkie was broken.

I guess them throwing it broke it.

And we threw it back out.

[man on radio] Everybody stand pat. Everybody stand pat.

Whatever devices we brought in,

whatever convincing we tried to do to get them to talk,

none of it was productive.

I don't think we had any idea who these guys were.

Why they were in there.

[♪]

[Shu'aib Raheem] Growing up here in Brownsville, in Brooklyn,

I remember eating ketchup sandwiches and drinking sugar water.

We were struggling.

There were five kids in the house with Mom and Dad.

You got a lot of table pimps.

We call 'em crumb snatchers, we were all crumb snatchers.

So there was all-- We was always hungry.

Your first love is Mom.

She was like a mentor, a teacher.

My father was my hero.

I wanted to be just like him.

And then one day I discovered that he was not my father.

Just...

sent my self-esteem into a tailspin.

Began even doubting that my mom was even my mom.

I said, "What other lies have y'all told me?

Who am I?

Trust is a big, big thing.

I would have these nightmares about falling.

I was searching. Oh, my God, I was searching for

some sense in the world.

I started drinking when I was about 11 years old.

My 16th birthday, I drank myself into a coma.

I had...

actually contemplated suicide before then

because my life was-- had bottomed out.

I was, uh, lost.

For somebody to take hostages,

they're in either psychological or emotional pain.

I'm absolutely curious about who the gunman is,

and I'm starting to look for those kind of clues.

I'm there to listen and empathize.

I'm his little Jiminy Cricket.

I'm his little conscience.

[Shu'aib Raheem] I started reading the Koran.

When I took my shahada with the Sunni community,

I cried tears of joy.

Like looking for a long lost friend,

and finally meeting him.

Oh, God, there you are.

It made me feel relieved.

Free.

Sane.

For the first time in my life.

Life had meaning. The world had meaning.

♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪

♪ Yeah ♪

Soon, my life was in danger because of my faith.

The Nation of Islam.

We were deadly enemies.

♪ Don't mess with people ♪

There's nothing Islamic about The Nation.

♪ Those other folks stand and chant... ♪

They believe that the Black Man is from

the Lost and Found Nation of Shabazz,

the white man is the devil.

♪ Ain't no lie ♪

This invented mythology.

♪ Yeah ♪

They believe every single word,

and some of them would kill for it.

Any time you question their claims,

you are met with threats.

We was having confrontations all over the city.

Assaults,

firebombing in the mosque up in Harlem.

One of them tried to proselytize me.

I say, "You say the white man is the devil?"

"That's right, brother man."

I said, "But the man who you worship as Allah,

"his name is Wallace Fard Mohammed.

"He's a white man.

"And if the white man is the devil,

that means you're a devil-worshiper."

Oh, man, he got furious.

"They'll cut out your tongue for that, brother."

Matter of days, he came to my house

with about four other men.

"We just wanna talk to you, brother."

These are the soldiers.

It became clear to me

they were gonna really hurt me really bad.

And I applied for a gun permit.

The desk sergeant, he says,

"You know we're gonna probably turn it down anyway.

You don't really need a gun."

"You know, we're Muslims and we're Sunni,

and Sunni, I--" you know, and they was like laughing,

"What's the difference? They all Muslims."

Who cares?

You know, don't confuse me with someone who gives a crap.

You know? Okay, so you're a Sunni

and you're Jihadist,

and you got this cause, that cause.

We weren't certain of who these Black Muslims were

with these skull caps and these flowing robes.

We didn't trust them.

We knew that they didn't trust us.

[Shu'aib Raheem] My wife hated guns.

I purchased a gun anyway.

But I said, "You have to learn how to use this.

You never know, you may need it."

When criticism was leveled against The Nation of Islam,

they reacted in some violent ways.

They broke into his apartment some kind of way.

His wife was in one of the rooms.

[Shu'aib Raheem] She was in the bed, under the covers.

They lifted the window up, stepped into the bedroom.

She jumped up and pointed at him and just started shootin',

and he escaped out the window.

[♪]

Oh, God.

She was never the same after that.

As soon as I came home, I called the police.

It took them two days to come to my house.

I asked for a 24 hour guard.

For Black people? [chuckles]

The police didn't care about us.

We never discriminated against anybody.

I mean, uh, I-- I can't tell you how many--

how many Black people lives I saved.

I think we over-- over-define racism

as, uh, something bad,

when in reality,

we want to be with our own kind.

Yeah, you had the slavery,

but think of how great America is.

What did I ever do wrong?

I-- I wasn't responsible for slavery or racism

The only way we're gonna end the racism

is let people decide for themselves

who they want to be with.

[Al Sheppard] Some cops became really, like, anti-Black,

but, you know, it was more of an occupying army

than it was of anything else.

An army of occupation of the ghetto, you know?

And that's been through the ages.

The Constitution was flushed down the toilet.

Policing nowadays, some of them never have been around Black people.

Everybody is a SWAT member,

they have no communication with the people on the street.

They just go by in these smoked out windows and--

More like a Gestapo.

You know, if you can't get to know the people,

that's not effective policing.

[♪]

[Walter Cronkite] Here in Washington this evening,

six persons reported killed in a wave of violence

including shooting at a home

owned by Kareem Abdul-Jabar,

the pro basketball star.

[reporter] Two adults and a child shot,

four children drowned in a bathtub.

Two other adults, both women, shot in the head survived.

[Dawud Rahman] The Nation of Islam actually killed

a family of Sunni Muslims.

Fear. Panic.

It's the most grotesque--

I mean, despic-- I mean, the-- the news.

They shot a two-year-old baby in the head.

That was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Dawud and Salih,

we saw what happened on the news.

I had one gun with three bullets.

[chuckles]

.25 automatic.

I wanted a shotgun, and ammo.

To protect out families and to stop these maniacs.

That was a terrible decision.

But...

Believe it or not, you researched it a little bit more,

they wanted five guns.

They could have driven to Nassau County.

The first one, the leader,

didn't have a-- a criminal record.

He could have bought them legally.

[clock ticking]

[traffic noise]

[man on radio] Temperature 27 degrees in Midtown.

On the scene, Tom Foty reports.

[Tom Foty] The standoff continues

in an atmosphere of uneasy quiet.

One of the gunmen lies wounded and in critical condition.

The man refuses all police offers of aid,

and the consensus is that if he dies

something, what, nobody will speculate,

will happen.

[indistinct radio chatter]

Mussidiq was thirsty.

He kept sayin', "Oh, give me water."

And Riccio said, "Don't give him water.

"That's the worst thing you do

with a gunshot wound to the stomach."

Then when he started spitting up green bile fluid,

that mean his bowel had been ruptured.

And then he was in and out of consciousness.

We gotta get him outta here.

If they really are attached to their comrade,

then they're gonna come out to give him a chance to live.

That was the only bargaining chip that we had.

[♪]

The real difficult part is waiting.

[Brian Tuohy] You're just sittin' back waiting.

Just biding time with nothing getting done.

You feel useless.

Officers think we have to be strong.

Supermen.

You're expected to take action.

But sometimes, the best thing to do is nothing at all.

Let emotions wind down.

Those are Harvey's teachings.

He calls it dynamic inactivity.

Well, doing nothing is certainly doing something,

that's for sure.

[indistinct radio chatter]

[man on radio]

[Harvey Schlossberg] Around noon time,

another hostage was released

to trade for a doctor.

That's what I look for in a hostage taker,

that moment of hesitation.

They're finished.

I've got them. They're mine.

Big breakthrough.

This could get them to surrender.

This community doctor,

he was told, "You stand a chance of being killed.

I give a lot of credit to the nurse.

That came with him.

She was very brave.

I thought she was sent in there to distract us

the way she was dressed.

She was distracting, no doubt.

Whoa!

"Volumptuous."

We said, "Oh, no, you can't come in here."

We sent her back out to change clothes.

The doctor, we frisked him.

He didn't have any weapons on him.

So then we took him to see Mussidiq.

He was scared.

They held him at gunpoint.

They didn't believe that he was truly a physician.

[Shu'aib Raheem] He gave him a painkiller.

Hooked up a makeshift fluid rack

to hold the saline solution.

They brought the phone in.

A direct line.

We're trying to figure out a way to end this thing.

[Al Baker] Getting a phone in to any hostage taker

is major breakthrough.

Now you're starting to negotiate.

[Harvey Schlossberg] What I'm tryin' to do is

to find out what this guy really needs.

I want you to recognize I'm a person.

I need love. I need help.

Freud believed the solution was inside the person.

Well, obviously,

I wanted to talk to the police.

Conflicted as I was.

Confused.

Angry.

I was looking for a way out.

[Jack Cambria] Harvey taught me that anybody can speak.

But the real skill in being a negotiator is listening.

You have to use active listening.

Emotional labeling.

Being non-judgmental, non-threatening.

And when they're yelling and screaming and insulting,

not accepting that verbal spear that was just thrown at you.

Deflecting it.

It'll land on the wall behind you.

They'll be left unarmed at this point,

and you'll be left uninjured.

It helps in every aspect of life.

I used to get my best negotiation practice

when my children were in their adolescence.

It works at home as well.

[phone ringing]

[Shu'aib Raheem] When you pick it up, someone answered right away.

His tone was very stern.

I said, "Well, listen, we need some--"

"You'll get no assurances, you just come out."

He just wanted me to walk out there and get gunned down.

He was a complete...

Excuse my French but forgive me,

but there's no other description.

Asshole.

I stopped talking and hung the phone up.

We're gonna defend ourself...

to the end.

[♪]

[Alice Buckner] It's scary.

You're crying, you know, your mother's in there.

and the neighbors are talkin',

and people in the hallway,

and people comin' up to check on me.

Early this evening,

a third hostage was released by the gunmen.

[Alice Buckner] They kept saying on the TV

they have enough ammunition to hold these people for a week,

and I don't know what's happening at the store.

My mother's not home.

And she's not home.

[♪]

[Dawud Rahman] I was, like, filled with dread.

I was suggesting that we try and clear up

the-- the mess in the store, you know,

but, uh, that was like

a naive, uh, suggestion, you know, uh...

[Shu'aib Raheem] Dawud was in shock.

He had never been exposed to anything like that.

I can see the fear in his face.

I was looking at Dawud and Salih, my friends.

Their lives had been so tragically affected.

I was in a position to stop it, and I didn't stop it.

I...

pushed forward and they followed.

Went along with it. It's not a good feeling.

Miserable feeling.

I have basically a shy demeanor.

I even consider myself like a...

a self-diagnosed, uh,

Asperger's-- [chuckles]

You know, uh, syndrome.

[Shu'aib Raheem] He was going to Brooklyn College.

He was a street sketcher.

He would sketch people's photograph

for five, ten dollars.

And... [exhales] with pencil and charcoal.

That's how good he was.

He could look at you and just... do it like that.

And people would pay him for that.

But what was phenomenal about him was his...

He could blow that horn. Lord have mercy. Mm!

He would practice...

[call to prayer sounding]

[man chanting]

[Jerry Riccio] The quiet guy,

he put himself in harm's way.

He sat down next to me with a weight right over his head

and I could have easily killed him with it.

I nudged Cleve, I says,

"I'll put it right in his head."

He was my gun guy.

Cleve was a good guy.

He had a glass eye.

He was like a weird look-- especially with that--

the glass eye, it wasn't the best--

wasn't the best job in the world.

I was in the service.

I had a machine gun squad.

I says, "Who do you think the most dangerous guy in the store is?"

He says, "Them." I said, "No. Me."

[Rosemary Catalano] I don't think that they believed they could get out alive.

It was a total stalemate.

Botched robbery, killed a police officer.

It wasn't gonna end there.

They weren't gonna walk out quietly.

[Harvey Schlossberg] This is intense hostage negotiation.

Am I gonna say the wrong thing,

and the person who is a mild problem

all of a sudden becomes a rage.

God forbid, if somebody gets killed,

you're gonna blame yourself.

Harvey is enormously tuned in to emotions.

whether they be his or the people that are around him.

He's the product of a very sensitive mother and grandmother.

His grandmother came from Russia to be safe.

The pogroms,

they would surround the Jewish communities and kill people.

Jews have experienced lots of suffering

and psychological pain.

I have a need to make people better.

That's a crazy need.

[♪]

[Jerry Riccio] How do you get out of the store?

Twelve people aren't running down the stairs

and out the door.

I took out my pocket knife.

Watching them, I could keep my arm behind the wall,

and draw the line with the knife,

down, across, up, down, across, up.

The little white dust would fall on the floor,

I would smooth it out with my foot.

Took a long time.

The people that were sitting against the wall,

terrified, tears.

I can't tell 'em what my intentions were.

I didn't want anybody blurting out any information

out of fear.

"Let me go and I'll tell you what they're up to.

He's got a gun. He cut a hole out in the wall."

You-- You're nervous.

The gun is in your waist.

I don't know what's gonna happen.

The leader comes over to me.

I put my hand on the gun. I don't have to take it out,

I could shoot him right through the coat.

I went over there and I see some men behind the counter.

I said, "What the hell are you doin'? Get your ass out of here."

You know, "Get your butt back on the other side."

Riccio was one of 'em, I said, "Man, I told you--"

He said, "All right, all right, all right.

It's not that easy to kill anybody.

And people turn around and say to you, "He's black," this, that.

It's not easy to kill anybody.

[♪]

[Shu'aib Raheem] I was layin' down upstairs

trying to figure out how'd I get in this mess?

Why did I do this? Why, why, why?

Takes a lot for a man to say "I'm afraid."

You know how we are as men.

Hard enough to even talk about feelings.

Fear is what drove me every minute I was in there,

that I was afraid to come out.

Scared to death of what might happen.

Fear, fear, fear, you know, it's-- it's--

it's crippling.

A gun don't make you a man.

At the end of the day,

doesn't make you safe.

Don't be afraid.

[sniffles]

[Jerry Riccio] The hostages were terrified.

The black girl named Fonnie, tears were goin',

shook her up so badly.

When I go to get one of the walkie-talkies,

I'm asking for Kotex.

Fonnie had gotten her period in the store.

[♪]

And I really believe that that's when she had her miscarriage

'cause she was pregnant.

That was enough to send it over the edge as far as...

this baby was not making it.

Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Lord have mercy.

[muttering in Arabic]

I'm so sorry to hear that.

She had the nervous breakdown.

Never really came out of it.

Not sleeping at night.

Medication is rippin' up your body on the inside.

You don't want to do anything.

And you still have a family you need to feed and maintain.

I'm an only child, just me and her.

My parents separated right after this happened.

[Alice Buckner] I feel like I lost both my parents.

[sniffling]

They have no idea what they put people through.

People who are injured and hurt and suffer,

even oppressed,

can become blinded by their own hurt,

and destroy the lives of so many people

who did you no harm.

That's the tragedy of it all.

When the victim becomes that which they fear.

[♪]

[traffic noise]

[clock ticking]

-[gunshot] -[indistinct dialog]

[gunshot]

[indistinct chatter]

[gunshot]

[police radio chatter]

[gunshot]

[indistinct chatter]

[Brian Tuohy] Four blasts of gunfire.

Maybe they killed the hostages.

-[coughing] -Where's your plan?

What plan do you have now that they're killing the hostages?

If I was the commanding officer,

I would have taken action against them.

Probably with snipers.

If you don't fight fire with fire, you're never gonna win.

[♪]

[gunshot]

Just move one finger, just move a pinkie,

just give me a reason to kill you,

and I will do it gladly.

We go back to the coffee table and laugh about it.

"We killed a guy. Yeah, Yeah, it had a happy ending.

And you ended up dead. So, ha, ha."

[reporter] The situation here in Brooklyn

has gotten much more tense in the last few moments.

-[gunshot] -We heard nine or six shots

ring out from the sporting goods store.

[police radio chatter]

[♪]

[man on radio] Where are the hostages now?

The railing that went around the store

on the second floor,

they had all the guns lined up.

They loaded them all so that if anybody came in,

they wouldn't have to stop to re-load.

Now the gunmen come upstairs, they brought the hose up,

He says, "Take off your clothes, we're gonna wash you.

We're gonna die, you gotta go to Allah clean."

Maybe they were gonna kill me.

Maybe the cops shooting in the store were gonna kill me.

They don't look at the shape over the desk.

That's a staircase going up.

If you put a knife against a sheet rock wall,

it doesn't make any noise.

I felt the knife go through.

And then I pulled the piece out...

and put it back in.

We have the escape plan made.

[indistinct chatter]

-[man] Whoever's gonna begin-- -All right, I'm gonna begin it,

but I cant begin it because I'm being squeezed.

-Give me a little room. -[man] Move back, please.

Help out a little bit, will ya? Back up. Come on.

-Give us a little room. -[man 2] All right.

[Benjamin Ward] This morning, as you know,

there were several gunshots fired,

and they informed us that they merely wanted to let us to know

that they were still there.

We immediately spoke to them on the phone and we told them

we knew that they were there.

[man] Have you made any decision as to a time limit?

I-- I could just say this to you, we have plenty of time,

and we have not made any decisions on time.

[indistinct chatter]

[Al Baker] The Harvey school of psychology is

you're lookin' to find that key that opens that lock.

to that guy's head.

[indistinct bullhorn announcement]

My mother?

[continues indistinctly]

"Son, Ib'n, salaam alaikum, baby, come out.

It's gonna be okay, they're not gonna hurt you."

[Gloria Robinson continues indistinctly]

[Harvey Schlossberg] Family. I usually tell--

I-- Don't bring them in.

If they had a healthy family,

they wouldn't be in here.

[Shu'aib Raheem] I used to have conversations with my mother that

that was, like, deep.

She would be up all night reading.

History, science, philosophy.

She was like a mentor, a teacher.

She was fragile.

She was an alcoholic.

And I used to get very defensive and angry with her

when she was criticizing me.

I thought she was naive.

They were just trying to use her to get me to come out.

To get shot.

When I fired the shots at the tank, she knew.

She didn't try to talk to me anymore.

She was so-- I broke her heart, Lord have mercy.

[♪]

We started hearing them-- [buzzing]

They comin' through the wall in the basement

while they talking

so nice on the phone.

The radio told us that the police was on the roof.

The place was surrounded.

We heard this big helicopter.

Hundreds of police.

They got this special team they put together,

they gettin' ready to come in and storm the store,

and you givin' me these niceties over the phone?

You're lying, man.

[indistinct chatter]

[man on bullhorn] They say that they are gonna die in that building

and they want us to come in and get them.

[♪]

[Al Baker] The perps certainly had evil intent.

Violence. Hate.

Kill the hostages.

Go out in a blaze of glory.

We didn't want to go out in a blaze of glory.

But, hell, if you're gonna execute me...

and I got all these guns in here,

what do you think I'm gonna do?

I'm gonna defend myself.

[whistle]

[Jerry Riccio] All of a sudden,

I heard what appeared to be a whistle.

[whistle]

This is it, they're gettin' ready to come in.

This is it. We just kept sayin', "This is it, this is it."

We went downstairs, listened to the basement door.

[Jerry Riccio] They all ran down the stairs,

left us alone.

Well... that's the chance you gotta take.

I gave Cleve my gun.

I told him everybody had to go through the hole.

[Alice Buckner] My mom was cryin', bad.

Cleve took one look at her and said,

"If I don't help her, she's gonna get us killed."

Pull yourself together, get your tissue,

stop cryin',

and let's go so we can get out of here.

[Rosemary Catalano] The adrenaline's pumpin'.

Just go.

There's debris on the stairs,

and Jerry says to Cleve,

"I told you to clean the staircase."

[laughing]

[Jerry Riccio] Everybody had to go through the hole.

"Okay, Cleve. Hold onto the gun."

[Al Baker] We have people on the roof to help contain the perimeter.

We had the Smith & Wesson Model 76 submachine gun.

If the perps come out blasting at the cops,

you're gonna have to return fire.

Hatch opens up, out comes a Black man with a gun,

and Casey and the team point their guns at him.

[♪]

Cleve's holding my handgun.

"There's a handgun comin' up.

It's mine, I got a permit for it. Don't shoot!"

Harvey taught it's important for the police officers

to hold back and not fire,

because once one officer fires,

it's really a domino effect.

Hormones such as testosterone kick into play

and push men to do things.

What a disaster.

Holding your fire is what negotiation is about.

Now, why that particular guy

popped open the hatch with a gun in his hand...

defies my logic.

And it turns out, he was an escaping hostage.

Police were able to understand that.

Damn good weapons restraint.

A very remarkable escape.

[♪]

[♪]

We're done. We're finished. We're not hostages anymore.

[♪]

[reporter] Officers ran the hostages to cars outside...

-...the line of fire. -There I am. Oh, my gosh.

[reporter] The hostages broke through the wall

-and raced to the roof of the store. -Oh, my God.

The police then got them off the roof,

and finally took them away.

Wow.

[clock ticking]

[Shu'aib Raheem] I walked over there and it was quiet.

I walked a little further and I seen this hole,

and I said, "Oh, sh--"

Whoo!

[Al Baker] The suspects lost their collateral.

That must have been when they realized,

"We're mince meat now. We're dead."

I guess it's all over now, you know?

Seeing a corpse, I feel like crying.

It really affects me.

I think a human life is such a precious gift.

You seen where the guy was?

[Harvey Schlossberg] The crowd, they become angry.

Don't give me all that bullshit.

[Harvey Schlossberg] "Stay out. Don't kill them."

The crowd got out of hand.

[♪]

[reporter] An ugly scene

in which police are just trying their best

to keep them out of the area that they have barricaded off.

In the meantime,

we have got all kinds of missiles being thrown.

Probably even bricks but definitely glass

as hundreds of people are running

in every which direction.

[Al Sheppard] Molotov cocktails, bricks,

they pushed the barricades over.

The shit's hittin' the fan.

You might have a massacre on your hands.

America's built on violence.

And guns.

That's-- That's our nature.

John Wayne, Hopalong Cassidy, uh, cowboys and Indians.

It's always-- You know, we're a violent country.

And we were built on violence.

And it's unfortunate.

[indistinct chatter]

[reporter] As we look around, police are massing,

and some kind of move against the sporting goods store

seems to be upcoming.

[indistinct chatter]

[man on bullhorn] The gunmen stated they are gonna die in that building

and they want us to come in and get them.

[Shu'aib Raheem] At the darkest moment of my life,

I had went so far out of bounds of right and wrong

that I didn't see no way back for me.

[Harvey Schlossberg] People think in a train of thought.

One thought pulls the next thought pulls the next thought.

I'm the thought interrupter.

I told the commanders,

"No, I'm not a person who kills other people.

I want them out alive."

Hold your fire.

It was just us in there.

And still they didn't storm the store.

[Al Baker] Even though we all bleed blue for poor Steve,

let's use our minds, let's use our hearts and souls

and let's fix this problem

before it gets to the violent stage.

It's an internal strength,

the opposite of the external, explosive strength.

That's true manhood.

Violence is a weakness.

[Shu'aib Raheem] "Please, reconnect the phone."

So Salih reconnected it, and I said,

"Well, okay. Let's talk."

Benjamin Ward was more calm.

He was Black, he understood our fears of the police.

Hey! Back!

Hey! Come on!

[Shu'aib Raheem] We also got that assurance

that they wouldn't try to beat us to death,

exact this retribution which they were known for.

We then spent a couple of hours

in just dialog on the telephone

to peck away at their philosophy

that the way to paradise

was to die inside of that building.

And make them see if they had a story to tell,

if there was a message to come out of what they did,

that they would have to remain alive.

[indistinct radio transission]

They may want to commit suicide

and get the police officer to do it for them.

The surrender ritual is the most critical part.

Nobody really knows what the next move is gonna be.

[indistinct chatter]

[♪]

[Shu'aib Raheem] They wanted me and nobody else...

to lay down my weapons

Walking out there literally exposed.

[police radio chatter]

I had to trust them.

[man]

Benjamin Ward actually walked down

and stood in front of the store.

Held his hands out and showed that he was unarmed.

[man]

[Shu'aib Raheem] I surrendered to him.

It was over.

[Gerald Lefcourt] Once the terrible shooting of the police officers occurred,

the leadership in the police department

did all the right things.

Negotiations...

rather than force.

We realized these guys didn't want to be there.

They got caught in a robbery,

and they were forced back,

and they were forced into a hostage situation.

What experience have they ever had

with the police?

It's all been negative. You know.

All of their brethren have either been arrested or beat up

or mistreated or abused.

Uh, you know, cops aren't known historically

for being the most kindest, gentlest people.

It was revolutionary to diffuse a deadly situation.

That's now your responsibility as a cop.

We started to transcend street justice.

[reporter] Were you one of the hostages?

Sir, can you tell us what it was like inside there?

Can you say anything? Was your life threatened at all?

[indistinct yelling]

[♪]

[camera shutters clicking]

It's a Muslim name. I can't pronounce it.

[laughter]

Shu'aib Abdul Rhaheem.

Alias, Shu'aib Abdul Al Raheem.

[indistinct dialog]

[detective] Attempted murder, robbery.

[♪]

[Shu'aib Raheem] First one in my family to go to prison.

I hurt my family.

[♪]

[Jerry Riccio] The quiet guy didn't do anything

to make himself look like a bad guy.

Putting him in prison with hardcore bad guys

would have been the wrong thing.

[interviewer] He's still in prison.

Maximum security.

Oh...

I--

You're sure, right? Right?

Whew.

The last guy in the world I'd think maximum security.

I'm trying to put all of this behind me.

You know what I'm saying? Because like, uh,

I regret it all.

The fact that I participated in this incident

you know, it-- I had to pay for it.

Forty-six years, I feel like I've done my time.

I would like to be able to, you know,

have, uh, some type of life after this.

He wasn't the bad guy.

I don't think,

other than that little guy that got shot,

I don't think any of 'em were bad.

[Shu'aib Raheem] In prison, you come face to face with your demons.

People would suddenly become very religious and spiritual.

What's driving them is their sense of shame and guilt.

Their quest for forgiveness.

The ministers say, "God forgive you."

It's not quite that simple.

You gotta walk back through every bad decision,

every person you hurt.

Riccio didn't deserve me putting a gun in his face.

My religion forbids that.

Police officers out there doin' their job,

to even fire a weapon in that direction was wrong.

Your sins. Face them.

It repulses you.

And until it repulses you,

you haven't really confronted it.

I got a master's degree from New York Theological Seminary

in Pastoral Counseling,

so I have the training being the chaplain's aides in prisons.

For over 35 years,

we were like the mediators, we created the peace.

It-- It's-- It's very, um, uh...

meaningful.

It's very important that he has come to

this level of understanding.

Should he be forgiven?

By God?

Yeah. He should be.

He should be forgiven.

It's not up to me to decide whether he gets forgiven or not.

I don't forgive him.

Killing a cop is unforgivable.

That-- I-- I firmly believe that he should have been

tried and convicted of Steve Gilroy's murder

and he should have been put to death.

I made a vow and a promise that when I come home,

I'm gonna tackle this prison industrial complex

by trying to stem the tide of young people

even going to prison.

The children in this area are suffering from PTSD

because of the violence.

You don't have to become that which was done to you.

[♪]

[Jack Cambria] The police department, in general

doesn't know who he is.

The general public doesn't know who he is.

But, very slowly,

police culture started to change.

The NYPD is the birthplace.

Today, almost every police agency in the world

has a version of a hostage negotiation team.

[man] I want to get you the help you need...

[Jack Cambria] That's all the foundation that Harvey put in place.

As long as it takes for them to say, "I had enough."

[Shu'aib Raheem] I don't know Mr. Harvey Schlossberg

but he saved my life.

my co-defendant's life,

and all the people in the store.

[Harvey Schlossberg] People do change.

Human life, sacred.

It really is.

[♪]

[♪]

[♪]

To have listeners again

that feels good.

[♪]

[♪]