A curious story
Two officers receive a call to check out a situation reported by a neighbor who had heard screams from next door. This is the kind of situation that occurs every day around the planet that required prompt reaction. What will they see when they get there? Is it a false alarm or something worst is taking place? How should they react?
The young officers arrived at the house. As they were approaching, they saw a young boy running out of the house disappearing into the garden. They rushed into the living room to check out the house and were confronted by a sobbing woman who was being threatened by a man holding a kitchen knife.
What followed was fascinating. One of the officers simply froze. He could not or did not know what to do. He was simply overwhelmed by what he saw. This is known as Emotional Hijack. Effectively, the frozen officer was in the grip of a sudden surge of activity by a particular part of the brain called Amygdala. In this case the overwhelming surge had frozen the officer in his tracks. The other officer, having seen his paralysed colleague, decided to take the situation into his own hands.
He had to confront the man but exactly how would you approach such a situation? Would you jump forward and try to take the knife out of his hand? Would you raise your baton, gun, or whatever you carry with yourself and threaten the man to stop? What if other children are around and watching? What would be the most effective way to handle this highly charged situation, considering that your colleague is practically useless?
The brain is an incredibly powerful part of the body and since the vast majority of our activities originate from our brain it pays to know how it works and use it to control such dramatic situations. In this case, a brute force approach such as direct threat, however tempting, may not be as effective as more subtle methods.
What happened next was interesting. The first thing the officer noticed in the man’s eyes was, fear! Interestingly he picked this up almost unconsciously. The man who was threatening the woman was simply afraid. What is the best way to deal with someone who is so afraid that is threatening others with a knife? The answer is almost straightforward. The officer faced the man and said, “Are you OK, sir?”. Suddenly the anger vanished from the face of the man and he started crying! The man with the knife was also hijacked by his emotions and the question the officer asked simply brought him back to logical reality, realising the sadness of the truth.