Most of
us have already watched movies, which involve negotiations between
the police and a killer or a hostage taker. Well, when these kind of
interventions happen in real life, you actually realize that there are quite
similar than the ones described in such movies. However, they may last longer…
During
more than 30 hours, between Tuesday 20th March and Thursday 22th
March, an anti-terrorist unit of the French national police, called Raid, has
stood up in front a building in Toulouse (France). Let’s quickly summarize the
situation.
Since 11th March, a young French man, Mohamed Merah,
started shooting people; both soldiers and civilians. He made 7
victims in total before being “intercepted” by the police. Negotiations have
lasted during more than 30 hours in order to determine the motives of the suspect,
but especially to try to arrest him alive. However, the intervention did not
process as the Raid hoped for. In fact, on Thursday, during an exchange of gun
shots with the police, Merah jumped out of his flat while shooting policemen.
However, a sniper killed him during his jump. In some way, we can say that
Merah has won the negotiations as he wished to die during a firefight with the Special
Forces. This last point means that, unfortunately, the Raid couldn’t achieve
its objectives, which were to arrest him alive and to judge him for his crimes.
However, as Merah pointed out himself during the intervention, he wouldn’t have
stop fighting until his death. Collaborating with the Raid
and sharing information about where some of his weapons were hidden was just an
excuse to gain more time.
As
Christophe Caupenne, Raid former negotiator, explained at the French television
on Wednesday, during negotiations every channels of communication are offered
to the suspect, in order to make him talk and to gather as much information as
possible. Some elements may also be negotiated; however the context is very
important and determines the whole communication process. The purposes of this kind
of exchanges are to establish a trusting relationship with the suspect and to
make the individual changes his mind while offering an honorable exit. Usually, only a single person is in contact
with the suspect in order to facilitate the trusting relationship. As we can notice
here, the use of a single spokesperson is also used during business crisis.
Moreover, the negotiation techniques used during Special Forces interventions
may refer to the compromising theory used to resolve conflict. Both parties win
and lose in order to finally agree on something. However, in this case, Merah stopped
several times the communication with the negotiator, which made the whole
process even more complex.
However,
in this case, in some way the negotiations have failed, as the Special
Forces couldn’t arrest Merah alive. As a result, would Merah’s death make hostile
feelings rise from people who think like him? (and there are some, because
unfortunately we live in a crazy world) Would these people try to avenge him? Would
it be more damaging for France and its international relationships with the
concerned countries? Therefore, would it make things worse?
More
information about Merah and the intervention are available on the following
links: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/17471313
