Icy Roof Negotiation Technique: Wait + Gravity = Win

A man in Spokane, Washington learned the hard way that when you’re taunting police negotiators from the top of an icy roof, and they are waiting below, they have gravity on their side.  And if you aren’t wearing metal cleats of some kind, you are doomed for failure, mockery, and a place on this blog.

Brent Nouwels, age 32 and old enough to know better, was arrested for attempted residential burglary, felony harassment, and general dumbassery, after he fell from a rooftop while taunting police negotiators.  KREM reports that a male neighbor said Nouwels was outside his door with a gun.  Nouwels then attempted to kick in the door and burglarize the home.  Nouwels returned home and shut off the lights when the officers arrived on the scene.  His plan to hide out next-door apparently failed.  As did his initial plan to keep the lights off so the 5-0 would think he was not home. 

Officers tried to talk to him through their vehicle PA system, and then negotiators came in.  Nouwels then climbed onto his roof and began taunting officers and told them he wanted to fight them.  He then lost his balance and fell off the icy roof and landed in the backyard and was taken into custody, probably without much of a fight. The ground had taken care of that. 

Nouwels learned a cardinal lesson of icy-roof taunting: don’t engage in icy-roof taunting without wearing either track spikes or old-school golf spikes.  Nouwels doesn’t seem like a track star.  And it’s all but impossible to find the old school golf spikes with metal cleats, now that golf clubs have all tried to protect the greens and clubhouse or some such nonsense which doesn’t allow us to use metal spikes anymore, even though they had much better grip, were easier to replace, and didn’t seem to tear much of anything up. It likely had to do more with jackasses who wouldn’t take their spikes off when they came into the clubhouse or bathrooms and tore up the floors.  None of that likely mattered to Nouwels, who likely wasn’t a golfer either. He was likely drunk if he tried armed robbery of his next-door neighbor, then went directly home and turned the lights off to hide.  And then climbed on the roof and wanted officers to come up there to fight.  I can imagine that conversation:

Nouwels: “Come up here and fight me.”

Negotiator: “No, come down here.”

Nouwels: “I’m gonna kick your ass.  Just come up here.  You’re scared.”

Negotiator: “You’re stupid and ugly and your shoe is untied.”

Nouwels: “No, it’s not. See” (pointing down, losing balance, falling off roof, cussing)

[Thud]

Nouwels: “Ugh, crap that hurts. Wait.  I’ll still fight you. Let me get up. Let me get my wind.  Crap.”

Officers then had plenty of time to get a search warrant to cover his hose and recover evidence, including his firearm, but clearly not spiked shoes.