“We hope we never find ourselves in the situation where we need them,” St. Johns County Sheriff David Shoar told Historic City News this morning; referring to members of his Crisis Negotiation Team as they were being presented the 2011 Team of the Year Award.
Retired Hillsborough County Sheriff’s deputy and President of the Florida Association of Hostage Negotiators, Allan O’Keefe, made the team presentation this morning; which was gratefully accepted by the sheriff.
Historic City News readers followed the drama over the 2009 Labor Day weekend when Quinn Hanna Gray, who, at that time, was the wife of the chief operating officer of Advanced Homecare, disappeared and was believed to have been kidnapped from their oceanfront Ponte Vedra Boulevard home.
Shoar said that case was one of the most complex of his career. “Understanding Gray’s thinking was near impossible,” Shoar told reporters.
Now known as “Quinn Renee Hanna”, since finalizing her divorce from Reid Allen Gray last year, her story has come full-circle — pleading “no contest” Friday, February 11, 2011 to charges that, in reality, she faked her kidnapping; in cahoots with her alleged kidnapper, as part of a scheme to extort $50,000 from her then-husband.
Hanna, now 38 years-old, and her co-defendant, 27 year-old Jasmin Osmanovic, have admitted to faking her kidnapping in 2009 when they were actually spending time together in a Clay County motel near Orange Park.
The case was submitted for peer review to the Florida Association of Hostage Negotiators earlier this year. O’Keefe told Historic City News that the local kidnapping-turned-extortion case was up against stiff competition. Other cases that were submitted by Florida law enforcement agencies included a variety of negotiation situations involving everything from social networks to fallen officers.
Shoar told his deputies during the ceremony that validation from their peers is one of the highest honors they will receive in their law enforcement careers.
According to O’Keefe, the case will become a “teaching tool” used to educate other teams statewide.
Team members honored this morning included team leader Shawn Lee, Chuck Triffon,
Damian Threet, Sheldon York, Robert Hancock, Ricardo Rios, James Weaver, Thomas Williams, Melissa Swindull, Chuck Griffin, Jeremy Huddelston and Ronald Hines.
Photo credits: © 2011 Historic City News staff photographer
Discover more from HISTORIC CITY NEWS
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.