Training Yourself to be a More Effective Witness

Editor’s Note: This article involves a hypothetical child abduction. It first appeared on this website in early 2004. But, due to the rash of recent child abductions and growing public participation in the AMBER Alert plan (click here to read our June 6, 2005 article on AMBER Alert), we feel that the timing is appropriate to re-run this article and a follow-up article over the next two weeks.

The hypothetical abduction is a part of a training exercise designed to help you remember more details about incidents you witness. Before you read the article and exercise, please note that the overwhelming consensus of academic and scientific studies on child sexual abuse indicates that abduction by a stranger accounts for only a small percentage of sex abuse—approximately 11 percent or fewer of all sex abuse cases. While a hypothetical abduction scenario is very effective for providing training on certain skills, we want to make it clear that most child sexual abuse is perpetrated by adults or older children who are both known and trusted by the victim and/or the victim’s family.

(Featured June 13, 2005)

Jeffrey T. Lester
Managing Editor of this Website

Being a good witness can mean a lot of different things. It can mean having a “good eye” and “good ear” for information. It can mean being “articulate” and “presentable.” It can mean being “credible” and “believable.” It can mean being “neutral” and “unbiased.” And, all of these issues are important to different degrees, depending on the specific role you are playing as a witness. But, when it comes to protecting children from sexual abuse, the first and perhaps most important meaning is, simply, training yourself to look for warning signs of abuse, remembering at least the general details of anything that looks suspicious, and reporting those details to someone who is in a position to verify your suspicions and to intervene if necessary. The good news is … you can teach yourself these important skills.

This is the first of a two-part series designed to help you improve your own observation skills in an effort to protect children. The purpose of this first article is to introduce you to an exercise designed to help you effectively observe and report the details of a crime in progress. The training exercise is designed around a hypothetical child abduction scenario. Next month, in Part 2, we’ll apply the same learning process to our second purpose: helping you to more easily and effectively recognize the warning signs of a potential sexual abuser. Together, these very similar skill sets can help you to be more effective in preventing child sexual abuse in your community. In the process, you’ll actually develop skills that help you be more effective at maintaining a safer environment for everyone.

Each of us has learning opportunities:

Each of us has multiple opportunities, every day, to practice being a good witness and a good responder to possible child sexual abuse. Your first challenge is to discern the best time and location to take advantage of these learning opportunities. Some possible opportunities include:

  • During your daily commute—assuming you use mass transit to commute to work (but, definitely NOT if you are driving).
  • When you are walking in an area filled with other people.
  • On an elevator.
  • In the entryway or lobby of a crowded building.
  • At a restaurant, supermarket, convenience store, mall, sporting event, or other crowded venue.

And, these are just a few examples. When I describe the exercise, you’ll think of other opportunities that apply to your daily routine.

Here’s the rationale for the exercise:

Too often, a well-meaning citizen will call 9-1-1 to report a possible crime, but the caller’s lack of observation skills make it difficult to accurately and effectively describe the crime. In this hypothetical 9-1-1 call, the caller’s instinct tells him or her that something is wrong, but …

Caller:  I just saw a guy dragging a little girl through a parking lot and putting her in a car and driving away.

9-1-1 Operator:  What is your location, sir?

Caller:  I’m in my car near Greenbelt Park.

9-1-1 Operator:  Where, near Greenbelt Park?

Caller:  On the street along the west side.

9-1-1 Operator:  And, where was the guy when he put the little girl into the car?

Caller:  In the parking lot.

9-1-1 Operator:  On the west side of the park?

Caller:  Uh … no. I think I might have been on the south side when I saw it.

9-1-1 Operator:  Okay … can you describe the car?

Caller:  It was black.

9-1-1 Operator:  Do you know what kind of car it was?

Caller:  A small car, I think.

9-1-1 Operator:  Do you know the make and model of the car?

Caller:  No … I don’t know very much about cars.

9-1-1 Operator:  Did the car have any unusual features that might help us locate it.

Caller:  I’m not sure.

9-1-1 Operator:  And, what about the man? Can you describe the man to me?

Caller:  He was about my size, maybe a little taller.

9-1-1 Operator:  And, how tall are you, sir?

I could go on and on with this description, but I think you can imagine how difficult it can be for law enforcement to get a good description of suspicious activity.

What if the man in this scenario had just kidnapped your little girl? Wouldn’t you want the caller to provide more accurate information, and to do so as quickly and efficiently as possible?

The training exercise:

This exercise is based on the conventional wisdom that repetition helps imprint information in our memory—conventional wisdom that has long been a driving force in advertising and marketing.

Here’s how the exercise works: In a crowded area, randomly select a target suspect (e.g., someone from the crowd) and give yourself approximately one minute to gather all the details you would need to give law enforcement a complete and accurate description of that person.

Begin with the person’s gender, general build, including approximate height and weight, hair color and length, skin color, and clothing. From a distance, it’s difficult to be highly detailed on these characteristics, so stick to some basic language. And, use yourself and others you know as a “relative standard” by which to create your description.

Unless you are within a few feet of the suspect, keep your height and weight descriptions very simple:

Regarding height, your choices are:

  • Unusually Short
  • Short
  • Average
  • Tall
  • Unusually Tall

Regarding weight, your choices are:

  • Unusually slim
  • Slim
  • Average
  • Overweight
  • Very overweight

Hair color is obviously subjective. Do your best to be as close as possible while sticking to the basics:

  • Light blonde
  • Medium blonde
  • Dark blonde
  • Red
  • Auburn
  • Dark Auburn
  • Light brown
  • Medium brown
  • Dark brown
  • Black
  • Jet Black
  • Gray
  • White
  • Bald

If you have difficulty with this many choices, stick to the bare basics (e.g., blonde, red, brown, black, gray, or bald).

Hair length is somewhat subjective based on the gender of the suspect, but short, medium, and long are good starting points. If the suspect is wearing a hat or cap, the style and color of the headwear is also valuable information (e.g., a blue baseball cap).

Light, medium, and dark are good starting points for describing skin color. Again, this is an area that is highly subjective. Use your best judgment and be as accurate as possible. Or, use descriptives such as, Caucasian, African American, Latino, Asian, etc.

Clothing is entirely subjective. Start with basics:

  • Light or dark
  • Colors of “top” and “bottom” based on what’s above the waist and below the waist
  • Plus, any other details that you can remember

Age is also an issue, and approximate age can greatly help in the search for a suspect. Don’t try to be too specific. Try to give an age range that seems to fit the age of the suspect (e.g., between 25 and 35 years of age).

In a case of child abduction or in any case where you don’t know the child’s identity, you’ll also want to give a physical description of the child, including as many of the basic descriptive features as possible—using the same criteria as you would to describe the suspect.

Now that we have some framework for the exercise, let’s get back to the exercise. Once you’ve selected a (practice) target suspect from the crowd, give yourself approximately one minute to gather all the details you would need to give law enforcement a complete and accurate description of that person. Then, go on about your normal business; but continue to visualize the description in your head, going over the details several times during the next few minutes. Be thorough, and the exercise can help you learn to provide quick and reasonably accurate details in the event that you witness child abduction or some other crime.

As with any exercise, the key is practice, practice, and more practice! If you’ll practice this exercise two or three times per week, you’ll be surprised how quickly your observation skills will improve.

Now, imagine for a moment how our hypothetical 9-1-1 call might have played out if the caller had been more adept at collecting and recalling the relevant information:

Caller:  I just saw a guy dragging a little girl through a parking lot and putting her in a car and driving away.

9-1-1 Operator:  What is your location, sir?

Caller:  I’m in my car on the street along the west side of Greenbelt Park, but the incident just happened in the parking lot on the south side of Greenbelt Park.

9-1-1 Operator:  Okay … can you describe the car?

Caller:  It was late model black ___________, and I wrote down the tag number. The tag number is ___________. Oh … and the left rear fender of the car had a green streak across it, like it had scraped against a green car or something else that was green.

9-1-1 Operator:  And, what about the man? Can you describe the man to me?

Caller:  He was a white male, about 30 to 35 years old. He looked to be about average height, maybe 5-feet, 8-inches, or so, and medium build, probably 160 to 190 pounds … something like that. He had dark brown hair, a gray beard, dark sunglasses, and was wearing a red baseball cap … oh, and his hair was long … it was sticking out of the back of his cap and hanging down onto his neck and shoulders. Oh yeah … and he was wearing a bright red jogging suit, with a large letter “N” across his back.

9-1-1 Operator:  And, what about the little girl.

Caller:  She appeared to be very young … probably three or four years old. She appeared to be Caucasian, with blonde hair, and a long ponytail … and she was wearing a light blue shirt and jeans. The little girl kept howling in a blood-curdling scream: “Leave me alone … I want my mommy!”

That’s enough of the hypothetical 9-1-1 call, but you can see how the quality of the information can make it much easier for law enforcement officers to “get the word out” and to initiate a quick search, before the apparent abductor has a chance to leave the area.

Applying this training exercise to recognizing potential sex abusers:

If you practice this exercise a few times each week, you’ll be amazed at how much more observant you become about lots of things that are happening around you. And, you’ll feel much more empowered to take action when you witness something that “doesn’t look right.”

The more important result, however, may be your own awareness of how easy it is to quickly and accurately observe details about other things going on around you. As with any exercise, the key is practice, practice, and more practice!

On June 20, in Part 2 of this series, we’ll expand the exercise to include the warning signs of child sexual abuse and offer suggestions to help you become more effective at recognizing and preventing sex abuse before it happens.

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