Name: Theo Becomes a Crisis Negotiator
Uploaded: 2025-05-27T14:30:03.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Theo Becomes a Crisis Negotiator' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-05-27. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Theo Becomes a Crisis Negotiator' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-05-27. Transcript available.

So how do you get it to become a hostage negotiator? Because that's what you
became.
Right. So that's a specialized unit, specialized training. You can keep your
primary responsibility
because what happens is you end up being on call. And that sucked because you
would be in the middle
of something and you'd get a call out. And you have to go. And you have to go.
Because there's
not many of you. No. And you need a team to assemble. On rare occasions, you
can call out.
So they'll put out an opening. And in every department is different, but they'll
put out
an opening. And then you interview for it. And then how well you're doing the
interview,
you get selected. And at the time, I was the youngest ever to be selected on
the team.
And that was a phenomenal experience. And so once you're on the team, you get
your phones.
Then you had pagers too. And you get your gear, your jacket and everything. And
you just start
responding to calls. Obviously, after training, you start responding to call
outs.
And if anything on the department weighs on you, it's talking to a person for a
significant
amount of time or listening to a person talk to you for a significant amount of
time, being
part of the team. And then the person does themself. Because hostage
negotiation isn't really
a good term for it. It's more of a crisis negotiator. Because most of the time
that we do it,
it would be from a person in crisis, a person at once to 405, as we said
earlier.
Who's considering unaliving themselves. Yeah. Take me through a scenario like
that.
Okay. So an actual situation? Yeah. Okay. So this one was deep. And I wasn't
the primary on this one. And this is a story that resonates. And they even tell
us in the class now. A guy who just, life was horrific. He had a terminal
illness. He had a, and I wasn't really, when I was younger, I didn't realize
how many people have back issues. And their back pain is just suffering. And
they don't want to live anymore.
And so I think what he had was cancer. He had a back issue that was just
causing him severe,
severe pain. And his wife left him because it was a whole bunch of issues. And
he had financial
issues for all these things that he was going through. So what happens is you
assemble a team.
There's a primary. There's a secondary. The primary is a person that talks to
the person.
And they're on the phone. Their sole focus is to talk to the person.
Talk to the person that's in crisis. That's in crisis. Okay.
The secondary is the person that is monitoring the primary and getting
information from the rest of the
team. And the team can vary. But two positions that are really important is the
intel liaison,
which is the person that tells the background of the person. The person's this
age.
They were married this amount of time. All the intel that you can possibly get
on the person, right?
Then you have the tactical liaison person because you have a SWAT team that's
assembled as well,
because you may have to potentially breach or go inside of the residence. So
tactically,
you have to know, has this place been evacuated? Are there weapons inside? Has
this person done
this before? So the TAC and the intel person feed this information to the
secondary. The secondary can
write notes and feed it. Then you have a scribe who scribes all this
information. So the case that I was
talking to you about was this person who had gone through this thing. He was
going through this thing
and it was a newer negotiator that was on as the primary. And after all this
time of talking to this
guy and getting to know him, the guy says, I know exactly what you're doing and
you really suck at it
and then shot himself in the head. He said, you really suck at it. That was the
last thing that he said.
It would kind of suck though, if that you're considering unalive in yourself,
you get on with the negotiator and he's just horrible at it. You're like, Oh
God. Like,
yeah, dude, that's crazy. That's a mic drop, bro.
Yeah, it is. And that's the thing that person had to live with that. You know,
that they're,
that's their, their record on the department is that they, that were they
really good at it though?
And the person just didn't know it. And that because anybody could say that,
that could be an asshole move. It can be. And part of it was that because I
mean,
how is it and what is good, right? How is it and what is good? Because I mean,
I actually brought a scenario that I was going to work through with you if you
wanted to try to be
a negotiating. And so, so basically this is pretty cool, man. Cause this is,
this is a, this is a,
I put this together, uh, which is a composite of a few different negotiator
things. And I'm going
to be, uh, I'm going to tell you, you're going to be the primary. Okay. And, uh,
so here's the
situation. Um, you, I can read it or you can read it on what the situation is.
And, um, actually I'll
read it to you like, as if you just showed up at the scene that you just rolled
up. All right.
Okay. Great. All right. Uh, Theo, you're going to be the primary in this one.
Okay. You got it.
The subject's name is Michael Brady. He goes by Mike. The background Intel we
have is he's a
middle school biology teacher for the last 14 years. He's a youth pastor at a
local Christian church
for the last seven years. He's 47 years old and he's a white male. He's been
married for 18 years.
His wife's name is Carol Brady. She's 46 years old. They have one son. His name
is Bobby Brady.
He's nine years old today. Michael was put on administrative leave for school.
When sexual
assault detectives came to the school on an anonymous tip, he allegedly impregnated
a 14 year old
student. Her name is Pamela Phillips. Mike Brady is currently barricaded inside
the residence.
We got the call because Mike came home, told his wife to get out of the house
as she entered
and up as he entered an upstairs bedroom and shut the door. He appeared to be
holding a firearm.
He is currently barricaded inside the residence. Your personal observation,
Theo, is that as you
pulled up to the scene, you see a young boy in a baseball uniform talking to
detectives and he's
crying hysterically. Presumably this is the son, Bobby. Okay. Tactical Intel.
There are two
known firearms. There's a shotgun inside, 45 caliber automatic pistol. SWAT has
arrived
and they set up the inner perimeter. Neighboring houses have been evacuated.
You can ask me three
questions and then I'm going to begin as though I'm Mike and you're going to
talk to me.
Okay. I asked you three questions. You can ask me three questions to get some
information to get
started. About the case. Yep. Okay. Is it based on the Brady bunch at all? A
little bit? I used that
because I knew I'd remember those names. Oh, fair. Fair. Okay. Damn. That's one
of my questions.
Um, let me think. No, that one you can throw us out. You can ask me three
questions that pertain
to it because you're going to go online and when you go online, it's going to
be pretty intense.
Okay. So I'm going to go online. I mean, I'm going to be talking to me and I'm
Mike Brady.
Okay. Um, you're the primary. Has Mike ever committed any priors?
Prior crimes or with, with young women? Prior, uh, like, uh, salt charges? Nope.
He has,
his, his record is completely clean. Okay. Um, how tall is he? Interesting
question. Uh,
he's six foot even. Okay. And is he on any medication? Very good question. He
is, uh, he takes,
um, uh, uh, uh, a sleeping pill to sleep. He has a sleeping issue. Ooh. Okay,
sir. Hello. Hey,
Mike. Yeah. Who's this? Uh, this is Theo. Actually. I'm the, I'm working. I'm
here today, man. Just,
um, I really screwed up. Didn't I, man? I think it seems like you've had a
tough day.
I have had a tough day, but I mean, I screwed up this time. Didn't I? I think
you're probably
enough to answer some questions, you know, but I think everything's going to be
okay, man.
How's it going to be okay? This girl, this girl's pregnant, man. I mean, how am
I going to face
anyone after this? Well, I think you're going to have to, her dad's going to be
pissed. Yeah. I mean,
yeah. People are going to be upset. I'm not thinking about her dad. I'm
thinking about my family.
Okay. People are going to, yeah. It's going to be, yeah, man, it sucks. Okay.
It sucks.
It sucks. But here we are. Yeah. I mean, how am I going to face my son?
Your son's pretty upset right now. Yeah, he is. Of course he is. I knocked up a
14 year old girl.
I'm a youth pastor in a church. I teach at a school. My life is over. Give me a
good reason
why I shouldn't just put this thing to my head and my brains out. Cause your
son's life is still
around and that's not what he needs right now. You're probably right about that.
But you know,
I mean, how can I face him, man? I think you call him first.
Call him and say what, what would you say in that situation? I don't know. Uh,
I don't know. I would
say, I would tell him the truth. I would say I messed up. And you think that's
the answer to tell
him I messed up. I know I messed up. I think it's part of it. I know you know,
you did, but he
probably doesn't know what's going on. He doesn't. Is he out there right now?
Yeah. You want me to put
him on? Would you? Yeah. Okay. How do you feel? How do you think you did? Was
that intense?
Huh? It is intense. It is intense. Fuck, it's intense. Cause you're like, is
now, even if you
get to that part, is he just going to tell the son goodbye? Exactly. See, you
are super wise,
brother. That's exactly why we wouldn't put the son on the phone. Cause that's
exactly what he would
likely do. He would try, he would likely. And so this is why we train. This is
why we train.
So the couple of other things, right? When we said son, that was a good
opportunity for you to do what?
Identify his son by name. Cause isn't Bobby different than saying son? Yeah. It's
different,
right? Yeah. My wife, that was opportunity. And I knew that. And this, I mean,
you better know.
Look at it. Use it as instructional. Use it instructional. It's very
interesting.
But that's when you say Carol, right? Right. Yeah. Carol. Yeah. And, but what I
like is that
you humanize the situation, right? Like you, that's the thing again, is where
you get the feel where
like you, he's talking to a person that he could potentially relate to. And,
and you, you create
that kind of that air about the situation where you would get all the costs and
be just completely
freaked out or completely militaristic, you know? And, and I like that you kind
of humanize the
whole situation. And this is obviously super condensed, but I know it will. The
fascinating
thing to me is yeah. When you realize the gravitas of this, like you think it's
easy. And then even
this, this is a placebo, even in that you're like, I don't have the answer
right now. And if I don't
get this right, what happens? And then I'm starting to learn as I think about
it too. I'm like, well,
it's not about you anymore. It's about your son. And then that kind of makes me
sad. Then it's like,
now suddenly I feel more feelings. Cause I'm like, well shit, now I'm doing
this really for the sun.
And I didn't even realize that until that moment, you know, even though like
you could be trained for
that. It's like, until that said, and it's a real moment and you can picture
the sun and you,
God, dude, it's like, it's just scary. And then at some points you might agree
that the guy,
it might be best if he lets God just, I don't know. Is that crazy to say that?
I don't know.
I don't think it is crazy. I think it's normal.