Page 9 - Top Cover Issue 6

TOP COVER ISSUE 6 9

Video can condemn or exonerate depending upon one camera held, at some point video imagery of an event will ‘tip the balance’
angle alone. of credibility.
In April 2013, the Metropolitan Police conducted a research Perceptual distortion and the memory traces of experience lead
project with Portsmouth University in Toronto, Canada. The to misperception in many instances. In the eyes of any external
purpose of this study was to compare the recall and memory review of these officers’ actions, it seems highly likely that their
account of ‘active’ officers with the observations and memory of written accounts will be viewed as contrived when compared to
‘passive bystanders’ while witnessing a provoked shooting. The the video. The public, media and lawyers are likely to discredit
study will be published later this year, however one finding from the officers’ accounts and claim that their notes are an attempt
the project provides a good illustration of the biasing nature of to justify shooting a man because they now know that he had
film. nothing in his hands.
Within the provoked shooting scenario, 90% of officers fired To return to the original question of whether body worn cameras
at a subject who rapidly turned towards them, the officers’ can provide greater protection for officers and greater reassurance
expectation being that he was about to present a hand gun. Pre- to the public? Well one thing for certain; the availability of video
event information and visual confirmation left officers with the footage allows far greater scrutiny and comparison between
expectation for what was about to happen in the seconds before individual accounts of memory given by Principal Officers Post
they fired. When shot the subject had nothing in his hands, the Shooting. This will directly influence perceptions of credibility. It is
handgun remained in his waistband at all times. likely that officers may provide less details in their written accounts.
It is worth mentioning that the British Psychological Society
offers this advice to the Courts and Lawmakers should they decide
to compare video to memory: -
‘Memories are records of people’s experiences of events and are
not a record of the events themselves. In this respect, they are
unlike other recording media such as videos or audio recordings,
to which they should not be compared’….

HOWEVER WE KNOW THAT THEY WILL!!

Many firearms officers will possibly look at the sequence of
photos (fig 4) and feel that they would instinctively fire shots as
well, the subject’s intention and the visual confirmation of the
handgun would leave few other options.
What is unique about this study is 20 officers provided written
accounts that describe the gun in the suspect’s hands as he
turned. Many officers described the suspect firing a number
of shots directly at them, some even described him advancing WRITTEN BY
across the room towards them. None of these events actually
happened. However, their experience and memory was very DAVE BLOCKSIDGE
real. This formed their honestly held belief - which was clearly
mistaken. While the law can excuse a mistaken belief if honestly