Crisis Incident Consultant: KIMS International
Tumelo is a retiree member of the South African Police Service with a wealth of operational, training and incident management experience. In over 34 years of service, he amassed operational and management expertise in Kidnapping & Extortion Management, Hostage Negotiation and Police Intelligence Service. Tumelo was also a member of the International Negotiation Working Group (INWG). He studied Psychology at the University of Port Elizabeth where his negotiation skills were honed.
Before his retirement, he had managed high-profile hostage-, kidnapping-, extortion-, suicide- and barricade incidents. He served as the Eastern Cape Provincial Coordinator of the South African Police Service’s Hostage Negotiation Team before being elevated to the National Head office in Pretoria. He focussed solely on managing incidents of national/international significance as well as designing and presenting training in the field based on emerging trends in hostage, kidnapping, extortion and barricaded incidents. In the absence of the National Coordinator, he acted as such.
Despite presenting a myriad of training programmes in South Africa, he has presented international training on the subject for the Botswana Police Service in Gaborone – Botswana as well as for the Defence Force of the UAE in South Africa. He also co-authored the Suicide Prevention Program of the South African Police Service.
He has presented and shared international perspectives on kidnapping and hostage incidents in Rotterdam – The Netherlands, Stockholm – Sweden and for the Federal Bureau of Investigations at the FBI Academy in Washington. He has presented international kidnap management processes and case studies in Vienna – Austria for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). He was co-opted to assist in the design of the International Counter-Kidnap Manual which is currently used by the UNODC in mediation for Peace-keeping, Peace-making and Peace-building in-country missions.
Tumelo completed his International Anti-Terrorism Assistance Programme in Hostage Negotiations training programme with the US Department of State at the State University of Louisiana in the US.