This presentation is an in-depth study of the 1980s pension fund scandal that occurred in the city of St. Louis and the hostage-taking event involving a St. Louis police officer as the hostage taker and a police commissioner who was the hostage. This event inspired the movie "The Negotiator." The study has been a three-year project involving interviews with the hostage-taker, the on-scene commander, four of the five negotiators, the hostage's sons, the newspaper reporter who conducted an interview immediately following the incident and several hostage rescue team members. Research included police reports and newspaper and television news footage.

Patrick Doering retired after a 28.5 year career with the Lake St. Louis (MO) Police Department. He was a Crisis/Hostage Negotiator for 20 of those years and spent the last three years as the Commander of the St. Charles County Regional Crisis Negotiation Team. He is a graduate of the FBI National Academy, the FBI National Crisis Negotiation Course, and the London Metropolitan Police (Scotland Yard) National Negotiators course. Patrick is the former President and co-founder of the Missouri Association of Crisis Negotiators. He has presented case studies at several negotiation conferences across the country. He is currently the Crisis Negotiation Section Chair for the National Tactical Officers Association.