Texas State hosted 33rd annual hostage negotiation competition

Law enforcement officers from across the country converged on Texas State University for the 33rd Annual Competition and Seminar for Crisis Negotiations, which ran from Jan. 10-12.

Approximately 26 teams participated, with municipal and state law enforcement units that came in from across the U.S., including representatives from Florida and Washington. An international team from Singapore also participated. Competition judges hailed from across the U.S. as well as Austria, Germany and Scotland.

Hosted by the School of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Texas State, the Hays County Sheriff's Office and the San Marcos Police Department, the negotiator training seminars provided basic and advanced training for hostage/crisis negotiators and personnel involved with critical incident situations. This included police, correctional officers and jailers, tactical and special operations team members, other crisis response personnel, administrators and managers. Teams conducted mock hostage negotiation exercises from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. on both Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday’s schedule focuses on classroom sessions. The program was not open to the public.