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The Bystander
Effect: Part 2
By Ari Bolden
www.veritas-services.com
Solutions for
taming a hostile crowd
In my article “The Bystander
Effect”, I dealt with the common problem security guards,
doormen, and law enforcement officers’ (LEO) face while
executing an arrest or restraint on a subject. Often a third
party (or parties) will begin to interfere in some fashion
(usually in the form of yelling) when one of these professionals
is dealing with a hostile subject.
There are four levels of subjects involved in this phenomenon.
They are:
1) The Professional (You)
2) The Subject or Suspect (the person you are restraining) also
called the 1st party.
3) The 2nd Party (friends of the 1st party who get involved or
third party persons who involve themselves physically while you
are trying to restrain someone.
4) The 3rd party (the Bystander(s) who yell and scream at the
apparent miscarriage of justice that they are witnessing).
I should note that there is a slight difference when doormen and
security are dealing with this problem compared to LEO. This is
due to a greater force presence perceived by the bystander of
the LEO because of societal constructs of their job. To
simplify: A cop has a gun and can arrest me and bring me to
jail. A bouncer has none of these so I can continue to call him
an A$$hole.
There is generally less fear getting hostile towards a security
guard or doorman than that of a police officer. However, alcohol
or anger often overrides a bystanders ‘good sense of judgment’
and they let the verbal onslaught pour out over anyone they
think is ‘misusing their power’. This may include the police.
I have had many emails and questions asking, “How does one deal
with The Bystander Effect?” Believe it or not, many of the
tactics I use, I learnt while getting my philosophy degree.
Logic, ethics and fallacious ways of thinking gave me insights
on how the common person perceives their surroundings.
Below are some common solutions to this problem and ways you can
curb the hostilities of a crowd:
Be Quick, Stay Calm and In Control: In riot situations, the
police are trained to stay calm but are careful to not give off
an air of subservience. If the bystander notices weakness, they
might build up enough courage to act physically towards the
professional. By keeping a strong level head, the professional
can prevent a simple arrest turning into a multi person brawl.
Make sure you restrain the person as quickly as possible. The
longer it takes, the more violence is perceived by the crowd.
Talk to the Subject: By letting the subject know why you are
restraining (arresting) them, might take the potential fight out
of the crowd. Remember, this is about “taming a hostile crowd”
and certain psychological tricks have to be employed. You are
actually talking to the crowd in an inadvertent manner. If the
bystander(s) hear the reason for your action, this might take
the initial wind out of their sails so they don’t start up with
you. Bystanders usually start acting up when they see prolonged
violence without any explanation on why it is occurring.
“Stop resisting! We are holding you (arresting you) for the
assault on the other person. Buddy, we don’t want to hurt you!
Stop resisting so we can sort this all out.”
Move the Subject: If may be a good idea, if you can, to move
your subject to another location. Out of sight, out of mind. The
longer the bystander witnesses you struggling with someone, the
easier it is for them the start slinging verbal assaults in your
direction. Therefore, time is the key. Moving the subject to a
lobby, office, or quiet place, might help everyone involved.
However, do not try to move an actively aggressive person. They
will take that opportunity while back on their feet to punch,
kick or run from you, making the situation worse.
Crowd Control: Getting the crowd back and dispersed is your best
bet to curb a potential bystander effect from occurring. The
further away people are from a restraint, the less likely they
will be able to point out your so called mistakes and wrong
doings. This is all fine and good, but unless you have a staff
of 10, this may be difficult to manage. Even though you are
calmly saying “Move along folks”, human nature is to watch these
events unfold. When was the last time you passed a car wreck and
didn’t look?
Appeal to Emotion: I’ve used
this many times with outstanding effect and it is my main weapon
against bystanders. While the bystander is standing there
yelling at you and trying to get your badge number and name
because of the ‘apparent miscarriage of justice’ that they are
witnessing (you’ll notice I always put that line in quotes
because the bystanders never have enough information to make a
proper informed decision. They are riding an emotional wave, not
a logical one) you can tell them that the subject just committed
some heinous crime.
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In the hundreds of bystander effects I’ve been involved in, the 3rd
party gets fixated on the violence of the situation and
automatically assumes that the professionals are being bullies and
over aggressive. They don’t understand that it is easy and quicker
to restrain with 3 people than with one (we want a control not a
FIGHT).
Once you’ve restrained, if possible, get another professional to
talk with the crowd. What this person has to do is appeal to the
bystanders higher sense of right. Everyone has a scale of good and
bad things in society. Some things are worse than others. What you
are trying to do is over ride the current ’bad’ with something
‘worse’. You are trying to get the bystander to click in and say
“Wow, really? That is why you are holding him? What an a$$hole!”
You see, while it isn’t ethically correct to lie to people in
general, sometimes my partner(S) safety will override that. I’ll
often use lines like:
1) He just smashed an old (young girl) lady in the face with a
bottle.
2) The person just ran out on their tab, hit our beer tub girl in
the face and we are holding them for the police.
3) He just grabbed a girl and forced himself onto her.
*All of the above lines have come from TRUE situations with I have
been involved in, so I guess I am technically not lying, just mixing
up the facts (okay, that is called justification).
In Western society, the assault of a female is almost a sure fire
way to appeal to someone’s sense of emotion. You may think this
tactic is sexist or not politically correct, but it works. If it is
stupid and works, it isn’t stupid now is it. My ethics professor use
to say: Just because someone has labeled something as political
correct, it doesn’t make it right or ture. There are deep seeded
notions in our psychological make up that are really difficult to
over ride.
Example: You watch the news and see several deaths in a war torn
country and shake your head. You see a news report on a puppy that
that has been beaten and you shed a tear (and want to kill someone
for doing this). Appeal to their emotional state and try to turn
them into your advocates.
Know Your Crowd: A quick overview of you is yelling and screaming
will give you an indication of what you are dealing with. Is it a
hippy with an over sense of consciousness? Is it a 3rd law student
who thinks she knows everything? Is it a mother out for the night?
Is a street vagrant with a hate on for authority figures?
The best piece of advice I ever got from my mother was “know your
audience.” If you do, you can manipulate and form them how you wish.
Great orators (speakers) tend to speak TO YOU and not at you.
If you can speak to individual, try and understand where they are
coming from. Be polite and calm. Watch the pitch and tone of your
voice.
“I understand you may think this is excessive, but please understand
we are trying to resolve this issues with as little force as
necessary.”
I would say this works about 20% of the time.
Identify the Ring Leader: and cut off their head (perverbally of
course). You need to isolate the ring leader in the crowd. The one
who is the loudest and most vocal. This person will get the others
to act up if left long enough. Having a few professionals move
towards this person will draw away from what is occurring on the
ground. The crowd will re focus on the new stimuli (what’s happening
over there).
The lines you can use can range from “you aren’t making the
situation any better by yelling at us” to “please keep your
distance” and moving in towards them so they move back (forced
presence).
Get Tough: A strong arm tactic when eloquence just won’t cut it. You
need to get the crowd back and NOW. Their drunken state isn’t
registering the other fine points you’ve tried.
1) Get the F#$K back.
2) Back OFF! You are preventing me from doing my job.
3) Stay Back
You won’t be seen as a hero in this one but you’ve kept them back.
Don’t try and to talk to the crowd while restraining someone. Have
your partners do it. You need to focus on the subject to calm them
down and get their higher brain functions working again.
So, where does that leave you? Every situation is different and the
number of bystanders will vary. I would say the key factors to
keeping the bystander effect from happening are:
1) A quick restraint
2) Moving the subject away from a crowd (if possible)
3) Appealing to the crowds sense of emotion (see above)
4) Separate the ring leaders from the crowd
5) Crowd dispersal (if possible)
6) Get Tough (verbal commands to stay back)
Hope this helps
Stay Safe
Ari Bolden |
