Training, patience, and time... that's what it takes to talk a barricaded suspect out of a house without harming themselves or the deputies responding to a call for help or talking a person who sees no future from jumping off a highway overpass.   The agency's team of 14 active Hostage Negotiators responded to eight such incidents during 2008.  

Their calls ranged from talking a female bank robber holding 15 hostages in the bank's vault into freeing her captives and giving up, to talking a distraught man who had lost his job and was threatening to jump off a bridge into getting help.  Clearly, the team saves lives.