Surprised and shocked looks on Tuesday at the station in Den Bosch. Everywhere at the station there were recognizable and unrecognizable police officers. It was all for a training: proactively identifying deviating, and therefore often suspicious, behavior. And that goes from pickpockets to terror suspects. “This way we want to prevent threatening situations and disruptions,” says Bas Quaedackers of the police.
“Today we train the identification of deviant behavior. This allows us to get threatening situations in the bulls early and prevent escalation.” Something that is desperately needed with the current threat level, Quaedackers knows.
Suspect from the train
But what is deviant behavior? “If someone is moving without a goal or keep an eye on people, they are all things that deviate from the normal pattern. At the station here may be someone who is wandering around. He may be lost, but he can also have completely different plans.”
It can be about everyone, says the agent. From pickpockets to terror suspects and from confused people to shoplifters.
A train from Tilburg arrives in Den Bosch. A uniform agent is at the top of the escalator and checks whether someone ‘behaves differently than usual’. And that is true, immediately a call goes to the colleagues in Burger who are a little further: “I just see a gentleman who is particularly maneuvering when seeing us. He is wearing brown pants, gray backpack, short gray hair and he walks towards platform three and four.”
Concentrated gaze
It is not the case that from now on, agents at stations and inner cities are actively looking for deviant behavior. Agents can apply it in their daily work and on special days such as carnival and King’s Day there are special agents on the street who actively look for deviant behavior. “We want to increase the sense of security. People see that we are present and we ensure that we have entered into the conversation before the criminal offense has been committed.”
The agents should not be disturbed on Tuesday. If a tourist wants to ask something, the agent will keep an eye on the stream of travelers: “Wait please.” And then he sees someone with deviant behavior enter the station.
“Request to colleagues,” it’s about the radio. “A gentleman, between 50 and 60 years old, just passes me here, gray pants, gray t-shirt, posture and he is wearing a black backpack. Like to check this gentleman.” A chat is made and it turns out to be Loosalarm, the man is just looking.
In total, agents train 32 hours a year. For eight hours there is a training for tracing suspicious behavior, the other hours are spent on, among other things, the firearm and legal lesson.
