eight of them, working together, just like they've done hundreds of times.

"We know what we're getting involved in most of the time," says Fred Spitler.

On May 13, at about 9:45 a.m., the SAU responds to a police shooting at the Wellesley Inn Suites, just off I-17 at Peoria Avenue. Patrol officers had been tracking a guy who they believed had shot another guy a few weeks before.

Patrol found the man, Eric Jones, at the motel and had already called for the SAU's help to take him into custody when Jones left the room and began walking toward his car. When patrol officers approached him, they say, he pulled a .357 Magnum revolver from his pants and pointed it at them. Two of the six patrol cops fired, hittingwounds in an effort to convince him to come out.

For the next 15 minutes, SAU negotiators in the office and the tactical team outside the hotel room door relay a ping-pong of information to those listening on the radio at the command post. The girl tells the negotiators she's helping him to the door; the officers watch as the couple tries for the door, then heads back deeper into the room. This happens several times.

"Frankly, Lieutenant, he just seems to be stalling," Dubina reports to Hoover. "Now we're trying to get the girlfriend out."

The officers just outside the room take it from there:

"We can't see him but she's putting something on the bed . . . She's right in front of the window . . . She's trying