Three hours of intense back and forth.
It is not easy and can push a person to the brink.
"It's hard because you never know what this person is thinking," San Juan Police Department Sergeant Rudy Luna said.
But it is his job to find out and then use that knowledge to rescue the hostage and also keep the suspect alive.
"When we go into a situation like this, even the suspect is important to us,” Sgt. Luna explained. “At the end of the day, the suspect comes out talking and breathing. We're happy with that."
He told Action 4 News that none of this comes easy and it takes hours and hours of practice.
It is time for them to make mistakes and correct them before a real situation arises.
"We make a lot of mistakes during training,” Luna explained. “That's what it's for. We need to know what they are and that way we don't make them in a real situation. If you've been negotiating for two or three hours and in those last minutes you say the wrong word or call him the wrong name---you've ruined everything and then you have to start from the ground up again."
This negotiator was able to put that training to use while dealing with a suspect who was holed up inside this home on Mint Street in San Juan.
The man forced his way into the home and kept a mom and her children worried for their lives as he kept police at bay.
That is until Sgt. Luna was able to coax him out where police were waiting to place him under arrest.
The suspect expected to face a slew of charges sometime Friday—those changes range from aggravated robbery to evading arrest.
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