COMMENT | Under the scorching afternoon sun, Maznan Omar was about to experience the longest forty-five minutes of his life. “I have been with the police for about 35 years and this is the first time I have experienced such an incident,” he said.

A 16-year old teenage girl, in a pink blouse and blue jeans, sat at the edge of the Kuala Lumpur-Karak Highway.

Maznan approached her from the back and spent several minutes persuading her to step down. But the girl remained quiet. “I was worried… she might jump.”

The firemen had spread the salvage sheet below the flyover to catch her in case she jumps. But Maznan, a ranked sergeant major, knew that the safest choice was for him to pull her onto the road.

His small steps to the girl, however, betrayed him. The more he talked to her and the closer he walked to her, the more restless she seemed. So he needed to distract her.

“I told her that since she did not want to speak, I had decided to leave. I brought...