Peggy says: Be sure to
warn the employees beforehand...especially if anyone has been through an actual robbery or other trauma. You do not want this to be stressful or dangerous.
During security training one year, we asked some guys (they were policeman) to pretend they were thieves so that we could test our employees knowledge of our robbery procedures. They busted through the door yelling, had masks on their faces, guns that looked real...made us all stand
against the back wall with our arms stretched above our heads while they robbed the "teller". (Once I tried to turn around and look, and one of
them screamed "Blondie, do you want to get hurt?" It was a riot!)
The thieves really did a great job. After we completed the suspect description
sheet, we asked them to come back in to see how well we did. It was a wake up call on being observant about your surroundings.
Have an outside party the employees are not familiar with simply enter the room during a training meeting, walk to the front and attempt to engage in a conversation with the speaker. The individual then leaves, and the speaker asks the attendees to close their eyes and visualize the individual. Suspect sheets are then handed out and attendees are asked to complete them, noting everything they remember about the individual's appearance, voice, mannerisms, and clothing. The speaker then asks for a show of hands to respond to questions regarding height, weight, clothing style and mannerisms. This exercise is used to illustrate the difficulty in obtaining accurate identifications of suspects.
By not drawing attention to the individual while they are in the room, you duplicate the conditions that sometimes exist when a person is committing a robbery or fraud and only the teller with whom they're directly involved is aware of it at the time. All others must depend upon recollections based upon just happening to notice the individual.
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