Today more than ever we talk about risks, and they are part of our daily lives. We all manage risks at every moment; therefore, somehow we are all risk managers, the important thing is to understand or understand that technical risk management is necessary for any activity that takes place within an institution. Thus, companies’ representatives -mostly private- are aware of the importance of managing risks within their organization, establishing, for example, compliance policies based on the determination of the possibility of materialization of risks that will significantly affect the legal entity and those who represent and integrate it.
We talk about risk when we expose ourselves to the future, considering that it might bring us undesired events in the form of damage, loss or pain. In this sense, in order to speak of risk, there must be the necessary elements to suffer damage or loss. There is no risk of explosion without explosive agents, nor risk of not winning the lottery if no number is bought.
The examples mentioned above are the “classics” for studying how to manage risks, learning to establish probabilities with respect to the events identified as risky and which, if they materialize, would prevent us from achieving our objectives.
Regardless of whether the future may bring us good or bad things, and regardless of the fact that it is not possible to totally eliminate the uncertainty involved, it is possible to imagine, foresee, simulate and anticipate; and this is what we should understand by management.
So, let’s focus on the unfortunate events that occurred at the discotheque “Thomas Restobar” in Los Olivos, where unfortunately several people lost their lives.
The police operation, given the sanitary measures and the measures ordered by the Government to face the spread of the Covid 19 infection, had the “green light” to intervene and put an end to the clandestine party that had been taking place, that is, without the coordination or participation of the representative of the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
In this sense, the police officers involved were right to intervene in activities contrary to the regulations, which would also have criminal relevance (violation of sanitary measures). The important thing now is to determine whether, prior to the intervention, adequate risk management was carried out, that is, the identification of strategic risks (improper implementation of decisions) and operational risks (those that may cause losses as a result of human error or external events).
It is necessary to establish whether risks were managed prior to the intervention, given that new evidence has emerged of how the events occurred ( I am referring to the videos of the security cameras of the intervened premises, which have been broadcast on different television media).
Now, many may wonder if the police have the necessary time to manage risks in the circumstances that have occurred, the truth is that the members of the Peruvian National Police must be prepared and properly trained to do so, as such interventions are their daily bread.
That said, in order to identify the risks, the objective(s) must be established, i.e., to intervene the premises and proceed with the arrest and identification of persons in flagrante delicto, but to do so it must be determined what events may arise on the way to the objective, and whether these events, due to uncertainty, may become risks that, when they materialize, will generate negative consequences or impacts.
In this line of ideas, we can identify as events: the uncertainty of the number of people inside the premises, a single access to enter and exit the establishment, the only exit is from a second floor and the space is considerably reduced, people in a state of drunkenness. All these events show, it was necessary to identify the risks that could arise from each event, as well as their consequences, in order to make the best possible decisions (mitigating the risks) for the execution of the police intervention.
It is clear then, that the police officers did not have to make a risk matrix at that time, it was simply common sense and application of their knowledge.
Let us hope that in the course of the days it is established that the intervention complied with the necessary risk identification at the time, otherwise, consequences could arise in the administrative fields (before the Inspectorate of the PNP), civil (civil lawsuit by the victims) and criminal (for negligent conduct that created a legally prohibited risk).