“But attitudes changed when the blind officers arrived and showed their determination to work hard and be useful.” “At first when members of the police heard that blind people were coming to work here, they laughed and told me that we were a police force and not a charity,” Mr. The hints included this one: Don’t leave computer cables trailing on the floor where blind officers can trip over them. Van Thielen arranged for sensitivity training sessions with blind volunteers.
UNDISTRACTED BY HOW TO
Others felt awkward about how to behave in front of blind people and wondered if saying “au revoir” - literally “see you again” - would give offense. Van Thielen, a no-nonsense police veteran, also had to deal with officers who feared that having blind colleagues would be a burden. Because they would be used mostly for electronic surveillance, they were given special status under a 2006 law tailored for forensic work that grants civilians some police powers but forbids them to make arrests or carry guns.
Recruiting blind people posed other challenges, Mr. Van Thielen, the police chief, said he had to turn away dozens of applicants whose sight was too good, including one “blind” man who shocked recruiters by driving to his interview.
Scoring high on a hearing test was a prerequisite, as was being at least 33 percent blind. The Belgian police said they were amazed at the number of qualified blind applicants for the six posts in the unit. Alain Grignard, a senior counterterrorism officer at the Brussels Federal Police, noted that wiretaps proved instrumental in the recent arrests of a large terrorist cell in Belgium that was recruiting for the insurgency in Iraq. Van Loo could be particularly valuable in counterterrorism investigations because surveillance recordings are often muffled by loud background noise, requiring a highly trained ear to discern voices. THE police also recognized that blind officers like Mr. “Being blind helps not to let it get to me because I have to be tough.” “I have overheard criminals plotting to commit murder, drug dealers making plans to drop off drugs, men beating each other up,” Mr.
UNDISTRACTED BY SKIN
Grappling with his blindness, he says, has also given him the thick emotional skin necessary for dealing with the job’s stresses. It is these details that can be the difference between solving and not solving a crime.” Some people can get lost in background noise, but as a blind man I divide hearing into different channels. “It is a matter of survival to cross the street or get on a train. “I have had to train my ear to know where I am,” Mr. Van Loo, who says he has a “library of accents” in his head, listened and deduced that the man was Albanian the arrest proved him right. By hearing the sound of a voice echoing off a wall, he can deduce whether a suspect is speaking from an airport lounge or a crowded restaurant.Īfter the Belgian police spent hours struggling to identify a drug smuggler on a faint wiretap recording, they concluded he was Moroccan. Van Loo can identify the number instantly by listening to the tones. When the police eavesdrop on a terrorism suspect making a phone call, Mr. But his sense of hearing is so acute that Paul Van Thielen, a director at the Belgian Federal Police, compared his powers of observation to those of a superhero.
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