By Judi Villa, Dennis Wagner and Emily Bittner, The Arizona Republic
BUCKEYE, Arizona -- Hostage negotiators were hopeful Tuesday that a three-day standoff at Arizona’s second-largest prison could be resolved safely after catching a glimpse of both captive corrections officers and speaking to them by radio.
Negotiators said late Tuesday that they had maintained contact with the two inmates who stormed a watchtower early Sunday and that negotiations appeared to be effective. They would not elaborate.
The sighting earlier in the day of the corrections officers was a morale boost for negotiators as the standoff at the Arizona State Prison Complex-Lewis, south of Buckeye, headed into its fourth day early this morning.
“Both of them appear to move without discomfort, and they moved of their own accord,” said Cam Hunter, spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections. “They appear to be OK.”
Negotiators saw both corrections officers about 1:45 p.m. Tuesday. Each walked up the stairs leading from the second floor to the third floor of the watchtower. Each was visible through windows from the waist up. Negotiators also spoke to each officer briefly on a radio after asking for a “wellness check.”
“As time goes on and we know people are still talking, that’s a reason to continue to be optimistic,” said Ivan Bartos, warden of the State Prison Complex-Yuma.
“The main tactic is time,” said Cecil Pearson, president of Pearson-Radli & Associates Inc., a Las Vegas firm that specializes in crisis-intervention training. “People are talking. Cool heads are prevailing.”
The inmates have made only minimal demands, asking mainly for “comfort” items like coffee and water as they remain holed up in a watchtower seized early Sunday. Their motivation for the hostage-taking remained unclear.
“The demands haven’t been extreme,” prison spokesman Patrick Gibbons said. “They’ve been somewhat surprised by the lack of demands.”
In the beginning, negotiators may honor some demands without expecting anything in return except trust, said Pamela Curry, team commander for hostage negotiations at R.J. Donovan Prison in California.
“You need to have a rapport-building stage so you and that person can speak,” said Curry, who is not involved in Arizona’s negotiations. “And then you use each conversation as a building block. It’s a give-and-take thing. You’re going to give a little bit, hopefully a very little bit and then get a lot.”
Talks can be long and arduous as negotiators attempt to find out as much as they can about the hostage-takers, then try to influence their actions. This type of hostage scenario, where the inmates have no hope of getting away, can easily become protracted, Curry said.
“No need to rush,” she said. “Nobody else needs to get hurt. There’s a way out of this.”
Pearson, who also isn’t involved in the Arizona negotiations, said, “If a hostage-taker is talking, he’s not hurting anybody.”
The key is maintaining respect and trust while building rapport and creating a sense of team, he said.
“You have to be nice to these people. You talk to them like they’re human beings because you’re trying to save lives,” Pearson said.
The officers’ families are at the prison and are being updated regularly.
The standoff has been going on since 5 a.m. Sunday when two officers and a kitchen worker were wounded in a melee in the prison’s kitchen. A series of security breakdowns allowed the inmates to take control of a tower at the facility’s Morey unit and capture the two correctional officers.
The hostage standoff is the state’s first since 1973.
“There has been a tremendous response by our staff departmentwide to bring the situation to a peaceful resolution without injury to our two officers,” Department of Corrections Director Dora Schriro said through a spokeswoman. “We are singularly focused on this goal.”
Early reports indicated the watchtower where the correctional officers are being held was stocked with weapons, but prison officials said Monday that that was unsubstantiated.
It appears power was cut to the tower about 1:30 a.m. Tuesday. Curry said negotiators may cut the electricity to inmates for tactical information or because they could later use the promise of lights and heat as a bargaining point.
The Lewis complex remains in lockdown status. The facility is the state’s newest prison and was built in 1998. However, officials say the facility is overcrowded and is more than 18 percent understaffed. Correctional officials say staffing is at a “critical minimum.”
Prison officials said they still aren’t sure how the first inmate got out of the kitchen and how the pair got through a series of doors to the tower. The investigation into possible security breaches is on hold.
Gov. Janet Napolitano promised a full-scale investigation of the hostage situation and DOC policies after the standoff is resolved.
Reporters Chip Scutari and Amanda Crawford contributed to this article.