Longtime Montgomery police officer Douglas L. McFee dies

Douglas L. McFee, 74, a Montgomery County police officer for 31 years who once talked a bank robber into giving up eight hostages and surrendering without harming anyone, died of emphysema Jan. 16 at his home in Lewes, Del.

Mr. McFee, then a sergeant, was summoned to a Silver Spring bank robbery in the early evening of Feb. 9, 1977. He had just attended a three-day seminar on how to negotiate with hostage-takers, so he was chosen to try to talk to Stephen Wyatt Gregory, who, with two rifles and 250 rounds of ammunition, was holding eight bank employees and customers hostage.

"I thought to myself, 'Well, here's a chance to try out what I learned in the seminar,' " he said a year later, when he became the first recipient of the department's Gold Medal for bravery.

Over the next 6 1/2 hours, the officer with the "cool but gentle, even-toned Jack Webb voice," as The Washington Post reported at the time, chatted up the gunman, trading a bullhorn, then a submarine sandwich and then a six-pack of beer for one hostage after another.

Working with a seven-member SWAT team and the FBI agent who had been his seminar instructor, Mr. McFee had 30 to 40 phone conversations with the gunman, none lasting more than 10 minutes. In response to a demand, McFee went into the bank unarmed to save a hostage's life -- and was released unharmed.

"That was hairy," Mr. McFee said later. "But I went to the bank and walked in. He fired a couple of shots over my head to impress with his power over the situation. I was impressed."

Gregory fired about 200 shots inside the bank during the episode, The Post reported at the time. Mr. McFee, through his calm negotiations from the drugstore across the street, finally got all of the hostages out and then convinced Gregory that his mother would meet him at the bank's front door. She did, but so did the SWAT team, ending the situation.

Four days later, Mr. McFee helped peacefully end a five-hour hostage situation with a 27-year-old Hyattsville man who was holding his 6-year-old son and sporadically firing a .22-caliber rifle at police.

Douglas Lee McFee was born in Milwaukee and moved with his family to the Washington area when he was a boy. He graduated in 1953 from Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School. He worked for a hardware store and served in the Army Reserve before joining the police department in late 1961. While he was on the force, he graduated from the University of Maryland.

He rose in the ranks, serving as director of personnel, director of the youth division and district commander in the Silver Spring district.

In 1972, he wrote a poem, "Our Brother is Gone", for the funeral of his best friend, Detective Lt. Donald A. Robertson, who was shot and killed in the basement garage of the Silver Spring police station. The poem continues to be read at funerals across the country for police officers who die in the line of duty.

Mr. McFee was a captain when he retired in 1992, in protest over the way the department handled an officer's complaints that she was harassed and sexually assaulted. He also filed a $1.2 million civil lawsuit in Montgomery County Circuit Court, contending that the police chief at the time tried to cover up the officer's allegations and demoted him to the overnight shift for speaking out on the incident.

The case was settled out of court, and both parties were barred from discussing the terms, Mr. McFee's son said.

Well liked by his colleagues, Mr. McFee was mentioned as a possible candidate for Montgomery County police chief in 1994, a year after he and his family moved to Lewes.

His marriage to Barbara McFee ended in divorce.

Survivors include his wife of 31 years, Maryann McFee of Lewes; two children from his first marriage, Debbie McFee of Hampton, Va., and Doug McFee Jr. of Frederick; three children from his second marriage, Maureen McFee of Richmond, Megan McFee of Arlington County and Kara McFee of West Palm Beach, Fla.; five grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.