Oakland resident Doral Myles was grabbing a soda at a corner store Tuesday night when he overheard a tense conversation between the manager and a customer.
He walked to the front of the store and asked what the problem was. The customer, Myles said, “didn’t have a real issue,” so he invited the customer to step outside for a chat.
Within a few minutes, Myles was able to calm the patron down. After the customer left, Myles went back into the store to check on the store manager, who thanked him for stepping in.
“I’ve been in some situations in my neighborhood where they could have led to guns being used,” Myles said.
For a decade, Myles has worked to prevent conflicts from escalating into violence, especially shootings and other violent crimes. At the heart of Myles’ job is de-escalation. And although Myles is an expert with years of training and practice, some forms of de-escalation are skills that anyone can learn and use in their daily life.
But what exactly is de-escalation, and how does one employ it?
The Oaklandside asked four experts for their best advice.
MaryAnn Alvarado has led Youth Alive’s Teens on Target program for eight years, which empowers high school students to mentor their middle school peers on violence prevention and intervention. She has worked in the youth development space for nearly 20 years.
Ana-Marie Jones founded Oakland Speaks, a project dedicated to making conflict de-escalation a shared language in the Town. She grew up in New York City, where she learned from a young age how to de-escalate hostile situations and be an active bystander.
DeAndre Shackleford-Cooper is a school-based intervention specialist and life coach with Youth Alive who works with youth at Lighthouse Community Charter School and Lodestar Upper School in East Oakland.
Doral Myles is a citywide violence interrupter for Youth Alive, an Oakland nonprofit. Born and raised in West Oakland, he visits shooting victims at the hospital and goes to the scenes of shootings to point people to resources and prevent retaliatory violence.
Assess the situation and whether you’re the right person to de-escalate
If you see people engaging in conflict that feels like it could turn violent, you might have the urge to interject yourself and try to calm people down.
But before you intervene, observe the situation and the people involved and decide whether you’re the right person for the job.
“Do a quick check-in with yourself,” said Alvarado. “Make sure you’re in the right headspace to approach the situation.”
Take a deep breath and pay attention to your body. Is your heart racing? Are your palms starting to sweat? Are you seeing the conflict from an emotionally regulated state? Is your goal to keep everyone safe, rather than determining who’s right or wrong in the situation?
Alvarado also recommends assessing how well you know the people involved in the conflict. If you know them well, you might be able to personalize your approach in a way that they will be receptive to.
In the heat of the moment, it might be difficult to run through a full checklist of considerations. But knowing what to look out for can help you decide whether you can de-escalate the situation, or if you’ll need help from someone else.
Know when not to intervene
If someone has a weapon, is threatening immediate violence, or the situation feels unsafe, experts recommend prioritizing your own safety and getting help rather than confronting the person directly.
For nonviolent situations, you can call MACRO, Oakland’s non-police, non-emergency civilian response program, at 510-446-2276. For emergencies or situations where weapons might be involved, call 911.
The five Ds of de-escalation
Jones said there are five main strategies for calming down a hostile situation: distract, delegate, document, delay, and direct. A lot of these tips come from Right to Be, a national organization providing training and resources on bystander intervention and conflict de-escalation.
Distract
In situations where one person is acting aggressively toward another, distraction involves breaking the tension by redirecting the attention of the person being verbally confronted, or the aggressor. This could look like separating the involved parties — like what Myles did at the corner store — or interjecting during a heated conversation.
Jones used this technique when she encountered a man verbally accosting a woman by Lake Merritt several years ago.
“I literally just walked up, put my hand on the small of her back, and I said, ‘Let’s go!’” Jones said. “The guy was standing there ranting at nothing, but I got the woman away, and that’s all I was going for.”
The aggressor can also be distracted. Making noise is one tactic, and this can attract more attention to the situation. Jones said she always carries a whistle with her everywhere she goes.
Delegating
This could be a good strategy if you don’t feel comfortable distracting the involved parties, Jones said. Delegating can look like directing someone to call the manager if you’re in a store, or finding someone who knows the person acting aggressively. That person might be able to calm them down or mediate effectively.
Document
While it’s the most passive strategy, getting video or photos of a situation can be useful as evidence if it escalates into something that warrants police involvement.
“If you don’t feel comfortable speaking up, stepping up, or doing any of the active things, you could still take out your phone and make sure every single bit of it is captured,” Jones said.
When recording a video, Jones recommends saying the date, time, and location of the incident. You can also get the names and contact information of witnesses.
Delay
After an aggressor has left and a situation has calmed down, it can be helpful to check in with the person who was experiencing harassment or threats.
“Be that person who helps them regulate, helps them feel safe, and makes sure they’re getting their needs met,” Jones said.
You can offer to get them some water, call someone for them, or simply provide comforting words.
Direct
For those who feel confident speaking to an aggressor, it can sometimes help if a bystander directly names the inappropriate behavior they’re seeing or nonviolently confronts the aggressive person, Jones said.
This might look like firmly, yet calmly, telling the person to stop or that what they’re doing is not OK.
But this is risky and probably shouldn’t be done if there’s a strong chance it will inflame the situation further.
Another acronym to increase the peace: STAY
Shackleford-Cooper employs techniques that can easily be remembered using the acronym STAY to de-escalate tense situations. STAY stands for Stop, Think, Assess, and Your Next Move.
Stop
“We want people to stop because we want them to respond as opposed to react,” he said. “Reactions happen immediately, and responses happen after a person stops and does the rest of the acronym.”
Think
After stopping, think about what’s really happening and how you’re feeling about it. If you’re not emotionally regulated yourself, you might run the risk of making the conflict worse. You also want to assess how dangerous the situation is and if it’s even worth engaging in, said Shackleford-Cooper.
Assess
If you decide to engage, you need to think about how you’re going to approach the involved parties.
“Choose the response you know is gonna be the best for yourself and for the other people,” Shackleford-Cooper said.
One day, while working at a school in East Oakland, Shackleford-Cooper saw two elementary school students fighting during a P.E. class. He quickly assessed the situation and came up with a creative solution.
Your Next Move
“I suggested they have an arm-wrestling match,” Shackleford-Cooper said.
After a few rounds, Shackleford-Cooper told the students that they competed well and directed them to shake hands.
“They shook hands. They went back to play. Simple,” he said.
When appropriate, Myles leads mediation sessions where he’ll invite the people involved in the conflict to listen to each other and come to a resolution. He usually schedules mediations several days after the conflict has happened to make sure both parties are calm.
“Going to a shooting is definitely not the time and place to do it,” Myles said.
Before mediation begins, Myles said he lays out ground rules to ensure a peaceful and productive dialogue.
“We don’t overtalk each other, we raise our hands before we speak, and we let each person speak and get everything off so there’s no confusion from either side,” he said.
During these meetings, Myles sees himself more as a referee rather than someone who takes sides, which he said could make the situation worse.
He recalled the first mediation he held about a decade ago for two 12th-graders who got in a physical fight at a high school. He tried to mediate the conflict the same day, but “it was straight hell in the hallways,” he said.
Several days later, Myles invited the two girls and their parents to a mediation session. They were able to squash the issue and make up.
“The most beautiful thing about that situation was that they both graduated, and both of the families went out to go eat dinner together after the ceremony,” he said.
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