"This audiobook is fueled by the awesome combination of a compelling story, good writing, and a captivating narration...In a short audio note, the author says she hopes that listeners will be able to step into the shoes of the people portrayed. [JD] Jackson's excellent performance makes that easier." -- AudioFile Magazine This program includes an author's note read by the author Standoff is award-winning journalist Jamie Thompson's gripping account of the deadliest attack on law enforcement since 9/11, and the officers behind an audacious plan to stop it. On the evening of July 7, 2016, protesters gathered in cities across the nation after police shot two black men, Philando Castile and Alton Sterling. As officers patrolled a march in Dallas, a young man stepped out of an SUV wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying a high-powered rifle. He killed five officers and wounded eleven others. It fell to a small group of cops to corner the shooter inside a community college, where a fierce gun battle was followed by a stalemate. Crisis negotiator Larry Gordon, a 21-year department veteran, spent hours bonding with the gunman—over childhood ghosts and death and racial injustice in America—while his colleagues devised an unprecedented plan to bring the night to its dramatic end. Thompson’s minute-by-minute account includes intimate portrayals of the negotiator, a surgeon who operated on the fallen officers, a mother of four shot down in the street, and the SWAT officers tasked with stopping the gunman. Their stories go to the heart of the deeply pressing issue of race and policing in our country, and reflect America’s divide over how to view the men and woman assigned to protect us. A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt and Company
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“This audiobook is fueled by the awesome combination of a compelling story, good writing, and a captivating narration…The deep-voiced JD Jackson presents the very different beliefs of the characters with understanding and respect…[An] excellent performance.”
— AudioFile
“A nail-biting and nuanced true-life police procedural.”
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)“[A] ticktock, scene-driven account…eerily prescient.”
— New York Times Book Review“A fine and powerful narrative…Standoff brims with strong characters.”
— Dallas Morning News“A riveting page-turner and a nuanced portrait of one of contemporary America’s most divisive social issues.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)Be the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Jamie Thompson covered the Dallas police shooting for the Washington Post. Her later account of that night for the Dallas Morning News won an Edward R. Murrow Award for excellence in writing. She has been a contributing editor for D Magazine and an associate professor of journalism at the University of Dallas. Her work also has appeared in Texas Monthly and the Tampa Bay Times.
JD Jackson is a theater professor, aspiring stage director, and award-winning audiobook narrator. He is a classically trained actor, and his television and film credits include roles on House, ER, Law & Order, Hack, Sherrybaby, Diary of a City Priest, and Lucky Number Slevin. He is the recipient of more than a dozen Earphones Awards for narration and an Odyssey Honor for G. Neri’s Ghetto Cowboy, and he was also named one of AudioFile magazine’s Best Voices of the Year for 2012 and 2013. An adjunct professor at Los Angeles Southwest College, he has an MFA in theater from Temple University.