Contains spoiler from the opening scene of Season 4 Of Reacher.
Season 4 of Reacher starts as he approaches a lady who is displaying several behavioural indicators of a suicide bomber – a nervous woman, sweating, fidgeting, mumbling, possibly praying, looking straight ahead, wearing a heavy coat for the time of year to hide explosives. Had a large bag.
They will be using a version of a checklist that was migrated into Western counter-terror and law enforcement training after 9/11 and incorporated into the US TSA’s SPOT programme (Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques) but ended the format in 2017 when they phased out Behavior Detection and Analysis.
The List, Reacher
Number one: inappropriate clothes. Big, baggy, to hide explosives.
Number two: uneven movement because of the weight of the device or due to being drugged.
Number three: carrying a bag… a knapsack, briefcase.
Number four: clenched fist around the detonation device.
Number five: nervous behaviour, jumpy.
Number six: mumbling to themselves, possibly praying.
Number seven: odd breathing patterns.
Number eight: only looking straight ahead so you don’t have to see who you’re about to kill.
Number nine: intense focus.
Number ten: walking with directed purpose.
While the list works fine as a dramatic device, as a real-world checklist its easy to see how it can also be a source of dangerous false positives and discriminatory profiling and has been subjected to massive criticism in the past
In the series, the woman ticks almost all the boxes of a suicide bomber but she turns out not to be one; and shoots herself instead, and that death is what pulls Reacher into the season’s conspiracy.
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