Columbia, SC (WLTX) - Following Wednesday's standoff on I-26 News 19 spoke with former and current crisis negotiators to get a better understanding on how these types of situations are handled.
"It's always the intent to calm the person on the other side down and get them to come out peacefully," says Chandra Cleveland-Jennings, former crisis negotiator. "The main approach is to save or stop lives or threats to the community. So for them to stop and hold back traffic in the way that they did, it was intended to do that."
Cleveland-Jennings says the goal was to get bystanders out of the way, especially after learning that Robert Shaw, who was later identified as the man involved in the standoff, was armed.
"So of course they had to take the necessary actions that they did and stay their distance to protect their life and the life around the situation in order to get it done and solved peacefully."
She says the negotiation team likely called Shaw on his cell phone to try to talk him out of the car and if he didn't have one, they would've tossed one to him.
"It all depends on the person who is on the other side, how they answer the phone," says Jennings. "Either way around it, if they are high on emotions and they are saying stay back, you just agree to what you can agree to in order to get them to calm down."
News 19 spoke with Shaw's step-daughters after the incident, who said that they wanted to speak with him during negotiations, but they say deputies didn't let that happen.
The president of the South Carolina Crisis Negotiators Association says that could make the situation worse.
"We shy away from doing that because we're not aware of the emotions that might be involved with family members," says Eric Johnson. "We don't know the background there."
Johnson says the goal is to make sure the situation ends peacefully.
Wednesday's standoff did not end the way deputies wanted it to. Sheriff Jay Koon of the Lexington County Sheriff's Department told reports that they fired into Shaw's truck after he made a sudden movement when the tactical team was approaching. The 29-year-old was pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital.