Actually, can I see your ID?

I don’t often write informative blog posts or LinkedIn articles. Largely it seems forced, insincere and I feel like it gets lost in the ether of internet misinformation. Our marketing team keep telling me to but it’s difficult to write something interesting about what security companies do, and how to sell ourselves as the number one security company on the market. Last night, however, I watched '22nd July', the 2018 film drama about the terrorist attacks on 22nd July 2011 in Oslo and nearby Utoya island, Norway

For some background and essential information, on 22nd July 2011 Anders Behring Breivik, a Norwegian xenophobe detonated a large bomb in Norway’s government quarter before heading to the small island of Utoya, which was playing host to around 560 young members of the AUF – Workers Youth League – a youth politics organisation closely affiliated with the country’s labour party. While on the island he killed 69 people, the youngest of whom was just fourteen.

When analysing the attacks from a security related perspective, there’s actually very little to comment on. The bombing in Oslo has been analysed extensively and several opportunities have been identified where Norwegian authorities could or should have intervened to prevent the atrocities. The time taken for the police to reach Utoya has also been proven to have taken too long. Where there is opportunity to comment (and commend), however, rests almost entirely in one small question asked (in the film) by Utoya Island’s head of security, which ended up proving that age old saying of ‘prevention is better than cure’.

In the film, when Breivik arrives on the island posing as an Oslo police officer, carrying two large trunks containing numerous automatic weapons, he asks for the island’s management to gather everyone together so he can debrief them all as one group. 560 potential victims, brought to one easy location, direct to the killer. As plans for massacre go, it seems pretty fool proof. At this point of the film the result is seemingly inevitable. Breivik’s request is being actioned by staff on the island, while he is being escorted to the main camp where he intends to murder as many of the island’s visitors as he can. 

At this moment there’s very little that any person can honestly say they would have done different if they were in the shoes of those present on the day. A uniformed police officer with identification arrives at the island shortly after a bombing forty kilometres away, under the guise of protection and debriefing for those on the island. Very few people would offer much resistance to this (and I think most people who would argue with me aren’t being all that honest with themselves). 

In the movie, which for a Hollywood dramatisation stays pretty close to the truth, the security guard asks one simple intervention question at this point, which for the purposes of conjecture on the viewers part seems to be six words which save numerous lives. He pauses and asks Breivik, ‘Actually, can I see your ID?’, with a level of suspicion sufficient enough to accelerate Breivik’s plans. He draws his weapon and shoots both the camp leader and the security guard. This single change to Breivik’s plan alerts the island’s campers to the attack, and prevents the convenient corralling of left leaning politically minded teenage victims. Breivik is forced thereafter to take a circuitous route around the relatively small island, stalking groups of campers, killing where he finds them.

72 minutes, (depicted in the film in around 15 minutes) later, he is arrested by Norway’s Delta tactical unit arrive on the island and detain him without resistance, his third ‘attack’ being his ability to speak his mind during his trial. There is little doubt that for every extra minute taken by the Delta unit, the number of fatalities on the island would have increased.

So what relevance does the dramatisation of a terrorist attack 10 years ago in Norway have when deploying security guards or concierge officers to an office or commercial building in London or the rest of the UK? Intervention. Early, direct and effective. I’ve written about it before, here in relation to a visit to Facebook, and the film gives a perfect example of this process disrupting the attack. Commentators may well be correct in pointing out that there is no evidence of the statement being made, for obvious reasons, but the theory is sound. Early disruption intervention causes even the best laid plans to derail from their optimum state. 

It’s this kind of directive, given through assignment or deployment instructions, training and knowledge that separates basic security provision from the guarding that works. We’re not big on inflammatory claims or sensationalism in order to get new clients, but the threat from terrorism is as present as ever, and these interventions are applicable to all forms of intrusion, be it burglary, robbery, or even just old fashioned squatting.

For more info and a free review of your building security, get in touch at www.bluelightgroup.uk

Luke Brice

Director, Blue Light Group