For more than two hours, the department's CINT tried to end the incident peacefully by negotiating with the hostage takers. Negotiations were initially conducted from police headquarters, and a special negotiation team took over on-site after a few hours from a bank that had been evacuated. The hostage takers demanded $4 million, forty 1,000-year-old ginseng roots, four bulletproof vests, a 50-troop military helicopter, and transportation for everyone to Thailand after a refueling stop in Alaska. Throughout the incident, the hostage takers did not present a consistent set of demands to the negotiators.