In 2022, The Guernsey County Sheriffs’ Office began to notice a considerable increase in the amount of calls to service that involved either barricaded subjects, people in a mental crisis or drug/alcohol induced crisis and people wanting to cause self-harm. In the spring of 2023, The Guernsey County Sheriff’s Office was able to certify three Detectives in the art of Hostage and Crisis Negotiation and later establishing the agencies first “Crisis Negotiation Team” in 2023.
This later proved to be essential to the operations of the Sheriff’s Office as the team had two call out’s within 72 hours of certification. One with a barricaded person, who had discharged a firearm, who was convinced by a negotiator to surrender safely to deputies. Less than 48 hours later being called to a stand-off with a person in crisis, threatening self-harm. This person was also convinced to surrender himself safely to deputies. 2023 would continue to have a multitude of call outs for negotiators.
This past week, The Guernsey County Sheriff’s Office hosted the Public Agency Training Counsel (PATC) with instructor Dr. Andy Young, to instruct Phases I and II of the three phase certification course. The Sheriff’s Office hosted agencies from all across Ohio and multiple states. In addition, The Guernsey County Sheriff’s Office was able to start the process of adding 5 more deputies to the Crisis Negotiation Team. These five deputies, along with law enforcement across the country, will be able to participate in the certification course in March, when the Guernsey County Sheriff’s Office again host PATC for this course.
The Guernsey County Sheriff’s Office wants to let our community know that we exhaust every resource when it comes to taking care of the members of our community. The Guernsey County Sheriff’s Office would also like to thank the Haven of Hope, who provided role players to the assist the course. The Sheriff’s Office would also like to thank the following businesses, who either donated or discounted food or drinks during training. The Human Bean (Cambridge) and Creno’s Pizza (Cambridge).
Anyone or any local businesses that wish to donate anything towards the Guernsey County Sheriffs’ Office Crisis Negotiation Team or the March course being hosted by the Guernsey County Sheriffs’ Office, please reach out to Sgt. Bill Patterson at 740-439-6320 or by email at b.patterson@guernseysheriff.com.
