A few days ago, when I discovered that customers in a kosher supermarket in Paris, France, were being held hostage by an armed Al Qaeda member, I felt as if a bolt of lightning struck right next to me. I became jumpy, angry, upset. I swiped at tears running down my cheeks. I knew those hostages were no longer people. They were pawns in a horrible, terrifying game. They were prisoners without rights or advocates. They had to rely totally on their captors in order to live, which could cause the Stockholm syndrome to rule their responses. No matter, four hostages were killed.
In a 1973 Stockholm, Sweden, bank holdup, robbers held hostages for six days in a bank vault. The hostages so identified with their captors that they paid no attention whatsoever to law enforcement authorities and even sided with their captors after they were freed.
I had learned about the syndrome when I took part in an FBI training course in hostage negotiations. Since I was the Waupun Correctional Institution's Education Director, the warden assigned me as chief hostage negotiator of the Institution's Emergency Response Unit. A short time later, I became chief hostage, not the negotiator, in an inmate takeover of the institution. Although that riot took place over thirty years ago, I yet feel its octopus-like tentacles grasping at me, halting me in my tracks, and forcing me to become captive, once again, when I'm being advised that someone, somewhere in the world, is being held hostage.
Since I was viewed by rioters as "The Man" the day of the riot, they chose to lead me to my office, removed my blindfold, and demanded I telephone the warden and read off their demands. Before I would make the call, I demanded my pocket watch be returned to me. I lied to the rioters that my grandfather had given me that watch, and I needed it. What I was really trying to do was to reverse Stockholm syndrome and have them see me as an individual and not their pawn to be abused as they so wished.
A rioter offered me a nice wristwatch from a bag of watches. "No, no, it's a pocket watch." He finally handed it to me.
Instead of patching me through the warden's office, the sergeant in charge of the institution phone system during any emergency patched me to one of my fellow negotiators, Officer Roger Reifsneider. I was fairly certain he would answer the phone, which was following Hostage Negations protocol. Roger sounded nervous. I then told him I had to read him the list of demands that rioters had written down. I had to wait while he wrote down each demand. Finally, the last demand read, "If you do not meet any of our above demands, we will kill the hostages."
That was a difficult sentence for me to read.
At one point during the riot, a Puerto Rican inmate called out, "Mister Smullen," followed by a howl of laughter. I recognized the voice. It was Shorty's. At that time, I was in a classroom where I was being guarded by two Latino inmates. For the past two years I had been the staff adviser to the Latino inmate group. Shorty, the Puerto Rican temporarily removed my blindfold, a blue and white bandana the state handed out to inmates for their use as handkerchiefs.
He stood in front of me, all five feet of him. No matter his size, I was aware of his criminal past. In a Milwaukee circuit court jury trial, Shorty was convicted of murdering two people in cold blood. The judge sentenced him to serve two life sentences, running consecutively. That meant Shorty had to spend nearly twenty two additional years in prison before he even became eligible to see the parole board for the first time.
Generally, murderers are not released after their first parole hearing but long afterward, possibly as long as twenty additional years must be served. I figured committing yet another murder was no big deal for Shorty. Added to that, when a man spends a long time in prison, it becomes home, a secure place to live, with the inmate knowing where he's going to sleep that night and when his next meal is coming and what's going to be served for tomorrow's evening meal. What's an additional eleven years spent in such a slammer?
I figured Shorty must've reached up and pulled down my blindfold. I could see. "Look," he yelled, making certain I saw his weapon as he moved it side to side. Although the room lights were off and the shades in the classroom were pulled, I could see the two and one half-foot long blade. I recognized it as a paper cutter blade from the school office. It was now Shorty's sword.
I figured he or some other inmate must've removed it by simply loosening the nut from the stud that held the blade to the cutter's base. "I'm going to cut off your head," he told me. One learns to take inmates at their word.
Next, the pipsqueak held his medieval sword before him and grinned. In no time at all, and without any prompting from me or my guards, Shorty performed a macabre ballet around that classroom, jumping up and down, pirouetting, swishing the air with that weapon, sometimes coming close to me while my guards held onto my arms and giggled. The sword dancer-convicted murderer cackled in such an evil manner I knew that after he finished his tripping the light fantastic, I had but a few moments in which to live.
I pleaded with God to allow me to remain a man and not become Shorty's sniveling dupe, falling to my knees, crying, begging for my life moments before that sharp blade descended with force upon my neck. I wouldn't give Shorty that satisfaction. I next asked God that after this small fry killer chopped off my head that my blood would not gurgle. I'll remember that specific word—gurgle—for as long as I live. I hope I looked the way I felt, defiant, strong. I'll never know how those men in the room saw me, probably scared to death. For whatever reason, the little butcher did not carry out his threat and to this day, I believe it was divine intervention that saved me from being ruthlessly done away with.
Oh, there were plenty other threats made against my life that day. One included blowing me up as I was snarled to both an oxygen and an acetylene tank lifted up through a large hole in the second story academic school floor, the welding classroom immediately below. My arms were wrapped around those gas tanks. The rioters had handcuffed me with Lieutenant Cliff Rogers' handcuffs and my torso and legs were bound to the tanks with loops of welding wire.
Earlier, rioters had used whatever they could to pound through the academic school's floor to the welding classroom below. The pounding was loud, almost thunderous, cannon like. At times since then, a similar sound will instantly bring me back to that day and the fear I felt.
Before they bound me to those welding tanks, rioters lifted me and Lt. Rogers up to a pair of window ledges in my office, where we both stood. My legs were shaking. Rioters lifted the lower portion of the large windows above both our heads and yelled to the Emergency Response officers below on the concrete drive that ran between the school building and Food Services building. Rioters let the officers know they were going to first stab us and then push us to our deaths if their demands were not met. "You might want to get out of their way," rioters screamed.
At one point, a school officer even offered me up to the rioters. "Take out Smullen," he said. "He knows the man," meaning the warden.
The day after the riot, I confronted that officer. "Jack, why did you say that?" He didn't answer. In a year's time, he had drunk so much alcohol he met an untimely, early death.
Being a hostage means one must meet the hostage takers' wants and needs at all times. A hostage dare not become offensive. Objectionable behavior may well anger the captor or captors enough to murder that individual hostage plus her or his fellow hostages. That is why former hostages truly understand the meaning of helplessness. .
Don't get me wrong. I don't react negatively each and every time I hear of a hostage event on the radio or witness one on a TV newscast, but I react more often than I care to admit.
Minutes after I was freed, I told a Dodge County Sherriff's investigator that the inmates treated me decently. Elated, I felt so good I was still alive. However, that feeling and point of view didn't last long. In the evening, after I returned to my apartment, I cried my eyes out and became angry at what was done to me. I didn't sleep at all. I even planned on obtaining a gun, entering the institution the next morning, and getting my revenge. Of course, I would never do such a thing and obviously that didn't happen.
The following year, I had to return to the Dodge County circuit court numerous times to point out the men that held me hostage and what I personally observed what they had done. Every man was given additional sentences, some as long as thirty extra years to be served consecutively. Those fourteen inmates, thankfully, were sent off to Federal penitentiaries.
After the trials were completed, I was advised by a Corrections central office representative that a contract had been put on my life, and the corrections chief would soon be moving me to Madison. I was told that an inmate already had been chosen to murder me.
The next day, I checked with the inmate head of the lifers' group, James "Weed" Harris, and asked him if he knew of such a contract. A few days later, Weed assured me his group members had checked everywhere and there was no such thing. "You did right, Mister Smullen. Those men shouldn't have done to you what they did. And that's the way most of us feel. So, you don't have to worry."
When the English teacher decided he didn't want to be a hostage again or work in a prison any longer, I knew I didn’t want to move and work in Madison. I, therefore, decided to demote and return to teaching English because I had protection of a union contract that would forbid Central Office from moving me anywhere they wished.
Because of that demotion, my annual gross pay was cut by six thousand dollars. However, a year later, I had more in a savings account than I ever had. I don't know when I made the decision but I knew I'd never again be a willing, compliant hostage. That's the main reason why I requested a transfer from maximum security to a medium security prison, less likely to have riotous inmates but I was well aware there were no guarantees in a lesser secure prison. After all, the inmates are still locked up.
Furthermore, I realized the only guarantee in life is change. In my heart of hearts, I was certain I'd fight off any future captors. That would cause problems not only for me but for fellow hostages, as well, and I didn't want to be responsible for putting anyone else in harm's way. I received that transfer six years later.
Lastly, I used to make fun of the adage that when you're handed lemons that you should make lemonade. I no longer laugh whenever I hear it. About a year after I was held hostage, I decided that since I had been given a second chance at life, I needed to make some drastic changes in my lifestyle, and rather than feel sorry for myself, I was determined to live life to the fullest. Looking over that time since then, I believe I've succeeded in that endeavor.
In a 1973 Stockholm, Sweden, bank holdup, robbers held hostages for six days in a bank vault. The hostages so identified with their captors that they paid no attention whatsoever to law enforcement authorities and even sided with their captors after they were freed.
I had learned about the syndrome when I took part in an FBI training course in hostage negotiations. Since I was the Waupun Correctional Institution's Education Director, the warden assigned me as chief hostage negotiator of the Institution's Emergency Response Unit. A short time later, I became chief hostage, not the negotiator, in an inmate takeover of the institution. Although that riot took place over thirty years ago, I yet feel its octopus-like tentacles grasping at me, halting me in my tracks, and forcing me to become captive, once again, when I'm being advised that someone, somewhere in the world, is being held hostage.
Since I was viewed by rioters as "The Man" the day of the riot, they chose to lead me to my office, removed my blindfold, and demanded I telephone the warden and read off their demands. Before I would make the call, I demanded my pocket watch be returned to me. I lied to the rioters that my grandfather had given me that watch, and I needed it. What I was really trying to do was to reverse Stockholm syndrome and have them see me as an individual and not their pawn to be abused as they so wished.
A rioter offered me a nice wristwatch from a bag of watches. "No, no, it's a pocket watch." He finally handed it to me.
Instead of patching me through the warden's office, the sergeant in charge of the institution phone system during any emergency patched me to one of my fellow negotiators, Officer Roger Reifsneider. I was fairly certain he would answer the phone, which was following Hostage Negations protocol. Roger sounded nervous. I then told him I had to read him the list of demands that rioters had written down. I had to wait while he wrote down each demand. Finally, the last demand read, "If you do not meet any of our above demands, we will kill the hostages."
That was a difficult sentence for me to read.
At one point during the riot, a Puerto Rican inmate called out, "Mister Smullen," followed by a howl of laughter. I recognized the voice. It was Shorty's. At that time, I was in a classroom where I was being guarded by two Latino inmates. For the past two years I had been the staff adviser to the Latino inmate group. Shorty, the Puerto Rican temporarily removed my blindfold, a blue and white bandana the state handed out to inmates for their use as handkerchiefs.
He stood in front of me, all five feet of him. No matter his size, I was aware of his criminal past. In a Milwaukee circuit court jury trial, Shorty was convicted of murdering two people in cold blood. The judge sentenced him to serve two life sentences, running consecutively. That meant Shorty had to spend nearly twenty two additional years in prison before he even became eligible to see the parole board for the first time.
Generally, murderers are not released after their first parole hearing but long afterward, possibly as long as twenty additional years must be served. I figured committing yet another murder was no big deal for Shorty. Added to that, when a man spends a long time in prison, it becomes home, a secure place to live, with the inmate knowing where he's going to sleep that night and when his next meal is coming and what's going to be served for tomorrow's evening meal. What's an additional eleven years spent in such a slammer?
I figured Shorty must've reached up and pulled down my blindfold. I could see. "Look," he yelled, making certain I saw his weapon as he moved it side to side. Although the room lights were off and the shades in the classroom were pulled, I could see the two and one half-foot long blade. I recognized it as a paper cutter blade from the school office. It was now Shorty's sword.
I figured he or some other inmate must've removed it by simply loosening the nut from the stud that held the blade to the cutter's base. "I'm going to cut off your head," he told me. One learns to take inmates at their word.
Next, the pipsqueak held his medieval sword before him and grinned. In no time at all, and without any prompting from me or my guards, Shorty performed a macabre ballet around that classroom, jumping up and down, pirouetting, swishing the air with that weapon, sometimes coming close to me while my guards held onto my arms and giggled. The sword dancer-convicted murderer cackled in such an evil manner I knew that after he finished his tripping the light fantastic, I had but a few moments in which to live.
I pleaded with God to allow me to remain a man and not become Shorty's sniveling dupe, falling to my knees, crying, begging for my life moments before that sharp blade descended with force upon my neck. I wouldn't give Shorty that satisfaction. I next asked God that after this small fry killer chopped off my head that my blood would not gurgle. I'll remember that specific word—gurgle—for as long as I live. I hope I looked the way I felt, defiant, strong. I'll never know how those men in the room saw me, probably scared to death. For whatever reason, the little butcher did not carry out his threat and to this day, I believe it was divine intervention that saved me from being ruthlessly done away with.
Oh, there were plenty other threats made against my life that day. One included blowing me up as I was snarled to both an oxygen and an acetylene tank lifted up through a large hole in the second story academic school floor, the welding classroom immediately below. My arms were wrapped around those gas tanks. The rioters had handcuffed me with Lieutenant Cliff Rogers' handcuffs and my torso and legs were bound to the tanks with loops of welding wire.
Earlier, rioters had used whatever they could to pound through the academic school's floor to the welding classroom below. The pounding was loud, almost thunderous, cannon like. At times since then, a similar sound will instantly bring me back to that day and the fear I felt.
Before they bound me to those welding tanks, rioters lifted me and Lt. Rogers up to a pair of window ledges in my office, where we both stood. My legs were shaking. Rioters lifted the lower portion of the large windows above both our heads and yelled to the Emergency Response officers below on the concrete drive that ran between the school building and Food Services building. Rioters let the officers know they were going to first stab us and then push us to our deaths if their demands were not met. "You might want to get out of their way," rioters screamed.
At one point, a school officer even offered me up to the rioters. "Take out Smullen," he said. "He knows the man," meaning the warden.
The day after the riot, I confronted that officer. "Jack, why did you say that?" He didn't answer. In a year's time, he had drunk so much alcohol he met an untimely, early death.
Being a hostage means one must meet the hostage takers' wants and needs at all times. A hostage dare not become offensive. Objectionable behavior may well anger the captor or captors enough to murder that individual hostage plus her or his fellow hostages. That is why former hostages truly understand the meaning of helplessness. .
Don't get me wrong. I don't react negatively each and every time I hear of a hostage event on the radio or witness one on a TV newscast, but I react more often than I care to admit.
Minutes after I was freed, I told a Dodge County Sherriff's investigator that the inmates treated me decently. Elated, I felt so good I was still alive. However, that feeling and point of view didn't last long. In the evening, after I returned to my apartment, I cried my eyes out and became angry at what was done to me. I didn't sleep at all. I even planned on obtaining a gun, entering the institution the next morning, and getting my revenge. Of course, I would never do such a thing and obviously that didn't happen.
The following year, I had to return to the Dodge County circuit court numerous times to point out the men that held me hostage and what I personally observed what they had done. Every man was given additional sentences, some as long as thirty extra years to be served consecutively. Those fourteen inmates, thankfully, were sent off to Federal penitentiaries.
After the trials were completed, I was advised by a Corrections central office representative that a contract had been put on my life, and the corrections chief would soon be moving me to Madison. I was told that an inmate already had been chosen to murder me.
The next day, I checked with the inmate head of the lifers' group, James "Weed" Harris, and asked him if he knew of such a contract. A few days later, Weed assured me his group members had checked everywhere and there was no such thing. "You did right, Mister Smullen. Those men shouldn't have done to you what they did. And that's the way most of us feel. So, you don't have to worry."
When the English teacher decided he didn't want to be a hostage again or work in a prison any longer, I knew I didn’t want to move and work in Madison. I, therefore, decided to demote and return to teaching English because I had protection of a union contract that would forbid Central Office from moving me anywhere they wished.
Because of that demotion, my annual gross pay was cut by six thousand dollars. However, a year later, I had more in a savings account than I ever had. I don't know when I made the decision but I knew I'd never again be a willing, compliant hostage. That's the main reason why I requested a transfer from maximum security to a medium security prison, less likely to have riotous inmates but I was well aware there were no guarantees in a lesser secure prison. After all, the inmates are still locked up.
Furthermore, I realized the only guarantee in life is change. In my heart of hearts, I was certain I'd fight off any future captors. That would cause problems not only for me but for fellow hostages, as well, and I didn't want to be responsible for putting anyone else in harm's way. I received that transfer six years later.
Lastly, I used to make fun of the adage that when you're handed lemons that you should make lemonade. I no longer laugh whenever I hear it. About a year after I was held hostage, I decided that since I had been given a second chance at life, I needed to make some drastic changes in my lifestyle, and rather than feel sorry for myself, I was determined to live life to the fullest. Looking over that time since then, I believe I've succeeded in that endeavor.
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