EDITORIAL - Mental trick

If a person succeeds in smuggling a gun into a courthouse, it can only mean failure of security procedures. And such failure is not diminished regardless of whether the security people implementing the procedures are private security guards or policemen.

But when Canadian national John Pope went through security checks at the Marcelo Fernan Palace of Justice in Cebu City without getting the two guns he brought with him detected by the guards, more than just failure of security procedures was involved.

Accounts of Pope's shooting rampage inside the courthouse -- in which he gunned down a doctor, a lawyer, and a prosecutor before getting shot and disabled by responding police, leading him to turn the gun on himself -- also showed Pope playing an old mental trick on the guards.

Here is what might have happened, based on the accounts: Pope concealed his gun (or guns) inside a folded newspaper which he held under his arm and submitted only his bag to the security guards for inspection.

This is an old mental trick in which the mind is deliberately made to focus on only one thing. But first Pope set the guards at ease by volunteering his bag, thus suggesting willingness to submit. Submission in turn implies regularity and often kills suspicion.

Having volunteered the bag for inspection, Pope tricked the guards into focusing on the bag alone for inspection. Even if the guards saw the folded newspaper under Pope's arm, it was under his arm and must not be for inspection. What was for inspection was the bag before them.

Naturally, the guards did not find any gun in the bag. Their job finished (they inspected the bag diligently already, didn't they), they waved Pope through. What followed next should be a lesson for all security personnel manning security checkpoints anywhere.

Security personnel should not only be tested for physical fitness and weapons proficiency but for mental alertness and psychological balance as well. They should be given a crash course on the different mental tricks that determined law-breakers can play on them.