Former Special Agent Reviews Interrogations From Movies & TV | Vanity Fair

what the research tells us is that if you're holding a warm liquid you will think of me as a warmer person i've actually heated the cups with coffee or tea and would actually hand that to the person so they would at least be holding a warm liquid and hopefully think of me as a warmer person my name is mark fallon i'm a former ncis special agent after the attacks of september 11th i was the chief investigator for the al-qaeda terrorist network for trials before military commission and i have overseen thousands of interrogations [Music] today we're going to be breaking down interrogation scenes in tv and film this scene is from knives out harlan's nurse she was at the party in a professional capacity marta i guess harlan hired her to be around to take care of whatever medical needs popped up but really she's like part of the family daniel craig does a nice job of strategic interrogation practicing what's known in the research is the strategic use of evidence clearly he has done his research in planning and then he is strategically utilizing different pieces of information in what we call the funnel approach where you start broad and then you narrow down the information that you're giving out to see what the responses are and when you utilize a sharp technique you never let the person you're talking to know what's important and that way they don't know what to hide or resist telling you are you baiting me detective you know he doesn't and if you think i am dumb enough to be baited into talking family business just because a person resists answering a question doesn't mean that they're guilty of a crime they may be withholding information but it may be for a reason totally unrelated to the case you're investigating harlan never allowed any adaptations of his books hated the idea no yeah drives walt nuts because that's where the real money is daniel craig does a nice job articulating his questions so that he is doing more listening than he is asking questions in an interrogation i think it's critical to kind of take a step back the technique that i instruct the smart technique the strategic methods of assessing reliability and truth involves a first interview followed by an assessment and then another interview to explore those gaps that you've now determined based on your analysis and that's what we saw in knives out the leblanc character is someone that that i would be happy to work with in the field of course i don't think i'd have all those knives out in an interview room but good good for the movie [Music] this next scene is from brooklyn nine-nine what are you smiling about how uncomfortable this guy is jacked up the thermostat got the table all sticky made one of the chair legs too short the wobbly chair is another one of those old urban legends when i came on the job in the 70s they talked about trying to make the person interviewed so uncomfortable or off balance there's actually no validity whatsoever to it what you saw was some negative priming jake peralta appeared to try to make the the witness uncomfortable and that's the exact opposite thing that you want to do you want the person to relax you want to diminish resistance not increase resistance what you want them to do is what we call liking because cooperation is volitional you want the person to want to help you along not make them uncomfortable in the interview process what the research now tells us is that the standard interrogation room that you normally see on television and that you actually see in many police departments is the exact opposite of what you would like in the more progressive departments now of what many call a soft room which has nice comfortable furniture in it may have windows in it to open up that would be a more conducive environment to get information from somebody from the scenes i've seen from detective peralta he seems to have a great sense of humor had a lot of enthusiasm which are things that i would like to have on my team but i don't know about his police work this scene is from the dark knight i'm going to need a cup of coffee the good cop bad cop routine not exactly slamming someone's head into a table is the work of scriptwriters in the real world you would be prosecuted for that type of behavior see i'm not a monster i'm just ahead of the curve this wasn't an interrogation this was just a beating the batman movies are great entertainment but they don't mimic reality whatsoever the goal of any interview or interrogation is to elicit information in the beginning of the scene commissioner gordon actually had the suspect talking and that's what yields the best evidence and the best intelligence you have two ears in one mouth you should be listening at least twice as much as you're talking where is he what's the time what difference does that make well depending on the time he may be in one spot or several clearly this this was a psychotic episode going on but you could still elicit information from even a suspect like that you have some challenges in there because any information you get would likely be deemed unreliable however it is still information what occurred here was ineffective managing of behavior so when you have someone who is like that you don't want to escalate because the behavior will escalate the key is to de-escalate so that you get information out of the person commissioner gordon would not be in police work today having someone come in like batman you will not get cooperation from that you may get compliance but cooperation is volitional and there's just no way that you're going to get that when you're abusing somebody this next scene is from the wire so i can fill my hobby post yeah we'll start with an easy one is your name in fact desean fredricks true the scene here with the copier is one of these urban legends that's been around for decades what detective bunk does here is jeopardizes his investigation if that suspect did give information it would be ruled inadmissible in a court of law and it would really embarrass the department and did you and varnell shoot your boy pookie down on carrie street just like marnell said you did no no bye currently most if not all states allow law enforcement officers to lie in interrogations there has been a push recently to make that illegal some states have made it illegal for juveniles because it has resulted in false confessions and erroneous convictions so detective bunk is practicing some things that we are moving away from i used to teach because i was taught that an innocent person would not confess to a crime they didn't commit and that's absolutely inaccurate one quarter to one third of the people who've been exonerated by the physical sciences have falsely confessed to crimes they did not commit and so that's why we need to move away from those approaches that you saw with detective bunk this scene is from the good shepherd [Music] your name i think this is an excellent example of the eit program enhanced interrogation techniques in which the cia tortured prisoners it was part of the cia mk ultra program and kubarck counterintelligence manual has these practices in it what you saw there is the manner in which the cia was torturing prisoners to extract information that gravitated to guantanamo and abu ghraib they are illegal immoral ineffective and counterproductive and what you saw in that tape are war crimes sir this is my sergic acid diethylamide it's called lsd and we've had some very favorable results as a truth serum the cia went and elicited assistance from the most prominent psychologists and psychiatrists in the world and started experimenting with different type of drugs with the thought that they could elicit intelligence from that and each and every time the cia has experimented in this way it has resulted in some type of prisoner or detainee death there's no truth theorem sodium pentathol doesn't work it will get people to talk you just won't be able to understand or there won't be any coherence to it what happens is what's called the signal to noise ratio even if they told you something that was accurate and liable it would get mixed up and garbled with a bunch of other inaccurate and unreliable information and it'll be difficult to tell the difference i i think the good shepherd is an excellent movie to watch because it does accurately depict some actions of the cia and you could see the the results that occurred it's just not an excellent movie about obtaining reliable information this scene is from the watchmen tv series how long have you lived in tulsa oh five years six almost six what do you have for breakfast this morning cereal i think if i defecated on the american flag how would that make you feel confused nothing in that replicates anything close to reality not just fiction it was science fiction first of all it wasn't an interrogation it was a barrage of information it was barting with some sounds and some different lights actually not uncommon in some of the eit program where they actually played music loud music and had people in periods of darkness or light the problem is none of that elicits accurate reliable information it just meant to subject the person to some type of duress nothing in that scene would be conducive to an interview it's an abomination as far as an interrogation professional goes are you a member of or do you associate with members of the white supremacist organization known as the seventh cavalry no he knows you sure i was dilated on all the royal sharks yeah i'm sure generally people think that liars might fidget more there's no science whatsoever behind what's called micro expressions where people are trying to look and detect cues about deception the best method of detecting deception is a known or checkable fact and that's why you investigate not just interrogate the odds of somebody trying to detect deception based on visible cues is about a coin toss the problem is that law enforcement officers think they're better at it than the general public it's just slightly better than chance this scene is from basic instinct are your attorneys going to join us mr mill has waived her rights to an attorney did i miss something i told him that you wouldn't want an attorney present oh why have you waved a ride to an attorney mr mill why did you think i wouldn't want one i told him you wouldn't want to hide i have nothing too hot in the scene where sharon stone waves her right to an attorney is not uncommon particularly with the higher ranks of people that i've had to interrogate because they have a feeling of superiority so that's what you use to your advantage if a person has a more dominant personality the better roles to be more submissive because you will elicit more information and vice versa [Music] you like playing games don't you have a degree in psychology it goes with the turf the scene from basic instinct has several red flags you would never want to have weapons displayed that could be used by a defense attorney to say there was some type of coercion with the display of weapons if i were in charge it would be a much smaller interview team it would be me and a note taker there may be a team that's supporting the interrogation but usually on a monitor or behind a mirror having a team of goons sitting around a semi-circle of a beautiful woman is just totally unrealistic you want to develop a rapport and that's not a team sport do you like a cigarette nick you two know each other no no if i was the lead investigator and there was a apparent connection between sharon stone and michael douglas there would be a break called we would go outside and try to get to the bottom of what this apparent relationship was and i don't think that i would have michael douglas back in the interview with me on this particular case this next scene is from when they see us antron mcrae and raymond santana said they saw you rape the lady i never saw her i never saw no lady on who are you talking about the lady in the park i didn't see a lady or hit anyone raymond saw you hit him you saw a coercion there you saw a number of different tactics to try to just convince in this case juveniles that they're only out is to confess and we see the results of that today where we're still having people who are involved in lawsuits over false confessions due to similar tactics what you saw was incredible maximization right incredible pressure and then to relieve that pressure they give them a more favorable alternative to that the person who's under that type of duress and pressure then takes that alternative as the better option many times they think that they'll be resolved later but unfortunately it never works in their favor in the clip we just saw was horrendous police work and really what the practice of policing needs to move away from this scene is from breaking bad jesse you're never boring not boring at all so come on buddy share with us why were you tossing millions of dollars all over albuquerque i promise you we can hold out just as long as you can as long as someone is talking i will be learning something about them or from them what we saw the detectives do was nothing that would produce any type of sounds from their suspect there it appeared that they tried to keep control and it's not control that you're looking for it's cooperation there was no empathy they didn't appear genuine i i think their approach was lacking in that regard but i'm only asking for uh for a couple minutes here he said he wasn't talking a kid eats my guts despises me okay maybe i can get him cranked up enough that he they start yapping the suggestion to amp it up in there is nothing that i would recommend it's not uncommon to work together share suspects have different departments conduct interrogations of the same person what is unusual is that you would just walk away and let it happen without even observing it videotaping of interrogation in many states is mandatory because it captures a depiction of what happens in the room clearly in the scene it's personal for hank and turning the tape off it's a red flag that goes up right there right now in the field of interrogation there is a new wave coming a wave of science-based methods to elicit accurate reliable information for effective questioning and effective interviewing so we can move to more effective interviewing strategies to regain trust in our communities and protect the public safety and our national security

Channel: Vanity Fair

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Keywords: basic instinct, breaking bad, expert, expert review, expert reviews, how to interrogate, interrogate, interrogate 101, interrogating, interrogation, interrogation 101, interrogation expert, interrogation movie, interrogation movies, interrogations, interrogations expert, knives out, mark fallon, ncis, ncis agent, review, reviews, the dark knight, the dark knight review, the wire, vanity fair, vanity fair review, vanity fair reviews, watchmen, when they see us

Id: DgU-q384pO4

Length: 16min 43sec (1003 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 01 2021