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After Leaf confronted the officers inside the house and retreated back into the upstairs, the team secured the first floor to prevent him from moving down the stairway from the second floor. Another team took protected positions around the house where they could observe the entire structure. Their job was to keep him from getting out a window, onto a lower roof and away.
A member of the state police task force explained that the technique used is a four-perimeter system of control. In terms of concentric circles, the team downstairs, inside, was the innermost ring of the four. The team surrounding the house made up the second ring.
A third perimeter was established near the end of the farmhouse’s driveway, just off Rt. 612. That was the location of the forward command ]>ost. It also served as a " staging area for replacement agents and negotiators, and had constant contact with both the house, the main command post at the Sperryville fire hall and the troopers and agents stationed throughout the area.
A fourth perimeter was formed by the state troopers who blockaded the three roads leading into the hollow. Although their main function was to keep curious onlookers away, that served to heighten the sense of isolation felt by Leaf. He never saw or heard anything that the negotiators and tactical teams didn’t want him to see.
“You can’t let the individual assume any control,” said Kevin August, an FBI agent at the Richmond office.
Kidnappings and hostage situations fall into two broad categories, Mr. August said. All, he said, are “very serious, volitile situations.”
The first is an abduction where the hostages are used as levers to have demands met, such as a prison riot where they serve as bargaining chips, or where the demand is for money.
The second, and more dangerous kind, Mr. Augm said, is those kidnappers who have a “death wish, though perhaps it is only subconscious. “They create a situation where they know that they will die. They are not asking for anything —they are inadvertently commitSee
HOSTAGES, p. 11
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