Dog Day Afternoon

Setting
• Based on a true story of a bank robbery in Brooklyn, 1972 on a hot August
summer afternoon
• The bank robber was determined to steal enough money for his male lover
to have a sex change operation
• The bank robber and accomplice were unsophisticated and unprepared
• The robbery then turns into a tense hostage situation and a media circus
• Police try to negotiate with the bank robber for the safety of the hostages
• The bank robber negotiates an escape plan using the hostages as leverage
 Purpose of Presentation
• Identify and analyze the process of the negotiation in
“Dog Day Afternoon”

• Conclude with six essential negotiation stages used

by the police and/FBI to settle the standoff
 Negotiation Process Components
Components Robbers/Captors Police/FBI
BATNA Escape on a jet without consequence Apprehend the suspects
without causalities
Parties Bank robber and accomplice Cops/FBI/Task Force and Sharp
shooters
Interests Want to negotiate an alternative to Want Captors to surrender
surrendering
Values Claim value - inflict fear and death to the Claim value – State and show
police about the hostages if cops make a move captors that they are out
gunned and overpowered,
Barriers Getting his lover Leon to talk to him Moral dilemma of he
homosexual relationship
Power Use the hostages a leverage to escape Visual display of all 250 cops
fixed on the captor
Ethics States that he is catholic to the hostages and The detective proves to Sonny
does not want to hurt them unless he has to, that he is not lying to him
and displays open disgust with police
readiness to use deadly force
 Negotiation Process
• A push and pull of wills is heightened as the plot thickens.
The captors try and resist the inevitable. Soft and hard
negotiation strategies are demonstrated in the film

• Both parties are at a disadvantage due to the lack of options

and appear desperate and needy. This is not uncommon in
many negotiations

• At first opposing parties us positional based bargaining, which

eventually transitions into principled negotiation, thereby
ending the standoff
 Identify and Analyze
• Positional Bargaining
– Hard and Soft Styles
– Claiming Value
 Identify and Analyze
• Principled Negotiation
– Creating Value
» Separate the people from the problem

» Focus on interests rather than positions

» Generate a variety of options before settling on an

agreement

» Insist that the agreement be based on objective criteria

 Six Negotiation Stages
• Negotiation stages used by the police and/FBI to settle
the standoff
1) Preparation

2) Gathering and analyzing information

3) Listening/communicating

4) Setting the tone/limits

5) Keeping emotions in control

6) Closing the negotiation with an agreement