We had lights from patrol vehicles and it was almost a full moon. Eventually our eyes adjusted to a mowed pasture of eight-inch high stubble by a farm house. Then came a five-hour emotional roller-coaster confrontation in that field leading to a face to face negotiation involving me and ranger Johnny A. We’re about ten feet apart, with Robert P pointing the gun toward me and Johnny alternately. Johnny and I are 90 degrees from each other to him. He’s got to turn his head from one to another. So if he tries to engage either of us he’s got to do it one at a time. Hopefully one of us can get a shot off.

He’s talking about his gal and “what a no-good bitch she is”

I interrupt him and say, “is this the woman you plan on spending the rest of your life with?”

He says, “hell, no!”

“Then, why are you letting her win?”

He’d said he wanted to see his brother, to make his peace. This was a very suicidal sounding prelude to a suicide by cop. At one point Robert P said he was going to make it to that farmhouse. Johnny who was standing between Robert P and farmhouse said, “Partner, that ain’t going to happen.” Whereupon the guy sat down.

He stops and thinks about what I said.

He turns to Johnny and says, “do you have a gun?” Johnny, who is six or eight feet from him at this point on other side of a fence, looks at him and says, “no.”

Robert P turns to me and asks, “Do you have a gun?”

I said, “Yes, I do.”

And he starts to get real pissed off

I say, “Wait a minute. I’ve not lied to you yet. I’ve been standing out here with you for five hours. Yes I’ve got a gun. I may be stupid, but I ain’t no fool.”

He starts laughing. We all start laughing. With that he gets real quiet. I look at Johnny, Johnny looks at me. We both figure, Oh boy, here it comes. He’s probably going to level that weapon at me first which will give Johnny an opportunity to take him out.

All of a sudden at 12:47 am he raised the muzzle of the shotgun up, racked six live rounds out onto the ground, then put the gun down.

We started talking to him through the door.

He said, “Go away or I’ll jump. “

One senior official said, “Well, let his wife talk to him.”

She got up to the door and said , “Albert, you’re acting like an ass. Why don’t you come out?” Which completely flipped him.

We started telephone negotiations. I was talking with him, looking at him from another apartment across his terrace. He was facing a deal for him to turn hmself in. He knew he was going to be arrested, do ten years, be disgraced and lose everything, including his million dollar job.. He had nothing to live for. But I had him a few times.

He was saying, “OK, I’m going to come out now. I’m going to feed the dog, then I’ll come out.”

A good and a bad sign – good that they’re going to come out; bad that they start performing rituals. They just want to get washed. They just want to feed the dog. They just want to tidy up the loose ends, which happens a lot in suicides.

Tactically it was very difficult to get him. He was on a highrise terrace. Our team prepared to throw one of these cargo nets from the thirty third floor over the balcony to cops on the thirty first floor who would try to pull it tight against his ledge.

We talked for about seven hours, up and down. Yes, he was on my side. No, he can’t come because there was nothing to live for.

He had decided to come out three times. Each time I walked over to the other building and knocked on the door.

He’d say, “Who is it?”

I’d say, “It’s me, Gary. Are you going to come out now?” I’d walk all the way back, pick up the phone. “Why aren’t you going to come out?”

“Well, I don’t want to come out. What am I going to do?”

Again I talked about life, about all the things he had to live for.

We decided to move on him. We opened door slowly. He was in the living room. He ran out to the ledge. The net was dropped, pulled tight. With superhuman strength he squeezed out around it and dove thirty two floors to his death.