|
In
1932 a psychologist named Cannon introduced the world
to two now familiar terms when used in an emergency
context, FIGHT or FLIGHT. Cannon was, in fact, researching
the body's response to stress, shock and high emotion
- all conditions we may experience in combat. He was
interested particularly in the role and processes of
what we call 'emergency hormones'. At very stressful
times the body's endocrine system and parasympathetic
nervous system take over and we are put on an 'auto-pilot'
system by our body's reaction and often over-reaction
to events.
|
|
Losing effective control of our
actions is not a good thing, especially if our life
depends on correct action. Staying in charge of what
happens to us is a product of a number of things - some
mental, some emotional and some reactional, but however
we achieve this measure of control, one thing is certain
- the sooner we see it coming the better chance we have
of handling it.
|
|
Someone said "shock is the
fastest route to fear". What we need to understand
is that when we are in a frightening and shocking, high
stress environment, we often place blame on our inability
to act promptly or correctly on fear and associated
emotions. This is wrong, fear is simply the stressor,
the button pushed, which instigates the body's chemical
and neurological reactions. This is the Chemical Cocktail.
The constituents of this hormone cocktail, their benefits
and negatives, I've outlined in detail in my book -
'Streetwise' - space does not allow a detailed account
here, suffice to say that the feelings we get are often
so distressing and foreign that we simply shut down.
In effect we have discovered a third F that Lazarus
didn't deal with and that's FREEZE.
An academic study of kidnappings and assassinations
over the past 30 years or so reveals one singular, unavoidable
truth; all the attacks that were successful contained
one element - SURPRISE! The shock created by the attack
was such that valuable seconds of reaction time were
lost. VIP drivers ran into blocking vehicles, back-up
drivers ran into the lead vehicle and bodyguards were
shot and killed with their weapons holstered and their
safety catches on. Their inability to function correctly
was not a reflection on their vehicle and weapon handling
skills, which they would have practised ceaselessly,
very simply they never got a chance to do either. Drivers
who had been taught evasive driving skills, both offensive
and defensive, didn't get to do either and escort members
didn't get the chance to do what they had drilled for,
which was laying down return, suppressing fire and give
body cover to their Principal, whilst they removed them
from the danger zone.
They were taken by surprise and by the time they adjusted
to the shock of the attack ad realised what was happening,
it was too late.
|
|
To compound the felony, studies
show that the attack would have been preceded by possibly
months or weeks of in-depth surveillance, yet this had
not been detected. Surprise led to shock, led to the
button being pushed leading to hormone release and major
psychological factors occurring to those involved, such
as tachy psychia, cognitive dissonance and others. Regrettably,
because these feelings are so unfamiliar, the adjustment
takes too long and our bodies are shocked into inactivity.
|
| So
few people truly understand the nature of the problem,
preferring to labour on solutions based on physical skills
which, consistently, fail to work and do not stand the
test of the attack. It is not that the skills being taught
are inappropriate or ineffective, it is simply that the
attack is over before the victim gets to use his skills.
|
 |
|
Current police defensive tactics
training falls foul of this and is devoid of information
on stress responses and personal security. The swing
has been towards a kit-based solution to problems, as
well as an array of unarmed tactics, with no recognition,
unfortunately, of the vast subject of personal security,
which if addressed, would have a substantial impact
on officer safety. Being professionally involved in
the instruction of police personal safety, it has been
my goal to endeavour to redress the imbalance, to change
the emphasis from the reactionary, tactical approach
to AVOIDANCE of threat through the application of broader
strategies, psychology and pro-active personal security
procedures.
Those of you who have read 'The Modern Bodyguard' and
'Streetwise', will be familiar with this particular
theme, but it is so fundamental that it cannot be emphasised
enough and that is the way the process of risk reduction
takes place.
The process of Personal Security starts with a definition
and even though this relates to the Close Protection
world, it is relevant to every walk of life:-
"The object of personal security is to reduce
the risk of kidnap, assassination or criminal act by
the application of certain principles and procedures
to normal daily life".
Let us distinguish first between Principles and Procedures.
The first, Principles, are, if you like, the overriding,
guiding rules and we can reduce these to just three:-
|
|
1.
That the individual is responsible for his or her own
security - in other words we cannot look to others to
be ultimately responsible for our own personal safety.
2. That security measures must be commensurate with
the threat - simply this implies that too much in the
way of security procedures will be as ineffective as
too little security, as it will be unsustainable in
the long term.
3. That Constant Awareness is the cornerstone of good
personal security - more later.
|
|
|
Procedures,
on the other hand are the structured, routine do's and
don'ts we should apply to normal daily life, such as vehicle
security drills or the vast range of procedures for office
security. Some years ago when I wrote 'The Modern Bodyguard',
I separated the areas in which we operate into two broad
divisions. This was based on the fact that a client is
only ever doing one of two things i.e. they are on the
move (Travel Security) or they are static, in other words
located somewhere (Location Security).
|
|
Location Security sweeps up all
security matters as they relate to fixed locations such
as residence, office, hotel, public venues and restaurant/social
venues.
Travel Security on the other hand covers all aspects
of vehicle work from the security of the vehicle and
mobile security, through to aircraft procedures, train,
boats and public transport, as well as security whilst
on foot.
The vast array of procedures which have been established
to provide a safe environment whilst located or travelling
are not in truth personal security issues, rather they
are specific to the task in hand, such as all the rules
which may govern access controls of a building. The
procedures for the areas above are very comprehensive
and effective, but only if one overriding factor is
present - AWARENESS.
|
|
This
brings us back to the third principle above about awareness
being the cornerstone of good personal security and
nothing could be more apt. Remember one thing if you
remember nothing else - "security procedures are
blind to reality". What this means is that we can
carry out a procedure with absolute diligence, but if
we are switched off and have our minds and observational
skills in neutral, then the procedure itself is worth
nothing. Patrolling a key installation is a function
that can be performed to the letter, yet intruders,
who could have been spotted, go unnoticed and gain access.
This brings me to an old illustration
I have been using for over twenty years, but it is still
relevant today - the
THREAT PYRAMID.
|
|
THREAT AVOIDANCE
(fight or flight)
THREAT ASSESSMENT
THREAT ASSESSMENT
|
| Let's look at the
building blocks of the pyramid in more detail. Whether
we are security consultants, soldiers, police officers,
or Joe Public, we work at the avoidance of violence from
others. Avoidance of threat may mean tackling it head
on i.e. fight or flight or, better still, don't be there
in the first place - flight.
To be able to achieve a successful conclusion to either
means that prior to action we must have gone through
a period of cognition (thought process) in assessing
the situation and concluding it is threatening. This
means a process has taken place during which we have
assessed or evaluated something we have taken in and
that something is information.
It is at this point that the pyramid falls down, because
to gather information from our surroundings, we need
to be in a particular state and that is the state of
Awareness.
My proposition has always been that whilst we can call
give the impression that we are aware and alert, in
reality we are actually not. One example of this is
the old phrase 'Looking But Not Seeing'. For example
Anti-Surveillance is a procedural skill that everyone
connected with the field of VIP protection will be familiar.
Unfortunately, all those Close Protection details we
talked about earlier that were attacked and killed knew
the drills and probably carried them out. The reason
they didn't see anything untoward is back to looking
but not seeing, they were simply going through the motions,
but were doing it whilst their minds wandered elsewhere.
The reasons for this are many and complex, but can
be summarised as follows:-
1. Routine-performance - day in and day out routines
and procedures with little or no thought given any more
to the purpose of the exercise - essentially people
simply go through the motions.
2. Complacency - because we are not attacked on a daily
basis, we cease to accept at a sub-conscious level the
fact that a threat is possible or imminent. This eventually
leads to a state of denial should an attack occur.
3. An inability to stay focused on being aware as a
permanent condition - this is linked with the first
of these headings in that we are all capable of carrying
out routine functions i.e. driving, which for most of
us is a mechanical, sub-conscious skill, whilst our
thoughts can be elsewhere. In fact, what happens is
that our minds are assailed by a succession of linear
thoughts, over which we have little control, such as
worries, desires, concerns, etc.
Essentially, we perform at a physical level yet we
are switched off and at the risk of repeating myself
- looking but not seeing. In this state should an attack
or ambush occur, then the shock and surprise is tremendous,
we are dragged back to reality but often too late.
So, here we are down at the bottom of the Threat Pyramid
at Threat Awareness. What you should know is that awareness
is the state of mind where we allow information to enter
which is relevant to us and this is a two-tier process.
Situational awareness is a product of having information
about both the environment and the people in the environment.
Personal security awareness is not simply about being
able to spot the obvious such as someone with a face
full of scars, a smoking bomb and a machete tucked into
his belt.
It is about how the environment may be subtly changing
as we move through it. It is being able to recognise
when conditions favour a kidnap attempt during a road
move and being able to recognise someone, however innocuous,
that you have seen recently, but inappropriately. I
carried out some work in Amsterdam some years back with
a group of ex-pats, of whom half had been mugged in
three months. What became clear was that they had no
environment awareness, never mind an awareness of people
in their vicinity who may have been showing an undue
interest in them.
What was happening was that they were being targeted
as suitable victims whilst they were walking in the
well lit, well populated main streets, but they were
being attacked when they had turned off into less well
lit and less populated side streets, which provided
escape routes for their attackers. Despite the change
for the worse in their environment, this went unnoticed
by the victims who, as a consequence, became no more
cautious nor suspicious of people who were with them
in the side streets. They were in what we know as condition
white - switched off and with VICTIM written all over
them.
Why they were in this mental condition was a function
of their psychological make up and their attentional
state. I've gone into this in detail in 'Streetwise',
but this magazine article does not allow more than a
brief resume. The answer lies in developing systems
by which we can have a state of permanent awareness,
yet without any attendant paranoia. Awareness has to
function at a sub-conscious level and it has to be working
for us at all times, constantly ensuring we are taking
situational information in and then processing what
is relevant to us. These two aspects of information
are called by psychologists - Accumulation and Recognition.
If this process is on-going, we constantly analyse our
surroundings and how best to avoid problem areas, and
take better tactical advantage of the ground in advance
of us having a problem. There is, unfortunately not
the space here to go into the methodologies for creating
a state of awareness, but you can try to work on the
problem yourself and come up with a system that works
for you.
We can then link our new found awareness with a threat
state or as I call it an 'action trigger'. This is necessary
so as to have a reaction to events as distinct from
a long period of decision-making, a process by the way
which will probably fail under pressure. Coopers Colour
Codes are a proven system where, by means of a colour
code to denote increases in threat, we have an action
trigger on which we are conditioned to act. Try linking
this with the Threat Pyramid and you'll see how both
systems fit well together. The colour code works up
from Condition White, which is switched off, to Yellow
which we can link with awareness, Orange which corresponds
to the assessment level and Condition Red which is the
trigger which moves us to action (Fight or Flight) at
the avoidance level.
With such a system in place we can carry out all our
SOPs in the knowledge we are not just performing a function.
|
|
