Page 5 - TPA Journal May June 2022
P. 5
Do you see what I see?
By: James H. Pierson and Michael V. Ferguson.
In his 1970 hit “Everything is Beautiful,” singer-songwriter Ray Stevens opined that “There is
none so blind / As He who will not see / We must not close up minds / We must let our thoughts be
free.” The subject of todayʼs article revolves around the concept of seeing versus understanding
while viewing video — specifically, police dash-cam or body-worn camera video.
Video footage is omnipresent in todayʼs world. The amount of video the average person sees
on a daily basis is staggering: television, social media, remote learning sessions for kids attending
school, Zoom meetings for individuals who are telecommuting, Netflix movies at night, or YouTube
links sent via text, just to name a few.
A growing problem, though, is that many people have trouble objectively interpreting and
understanding what they see and what theyʼre watching. While multiple people can watch an identi-
cal video clip, each of them brings his own history, education, training, preconceived notions, emo-
tions, misconceptions, or other factors that will influence and taint the way he interprets what he
sees. When writing about viewing the world through your own lens, Michael
F. Kay in his Psychology Today article writes that “what you believe becomes your reality.” Rather
than a neutral, objective review of most videos, our pre-loaded psychological stance deeply affects
how a video is observed and interpreted. This problem is magnified when dealing with police-record-
ed videos in use of force cases.
Two concepts need to be considered and addressed when viewing or presenting video as
evidence to mitigate the human factors involved: the conditioning and practice most citizens have
vis-à-vis watching videos; and the illusion of officer control (i.e., who actually controls the encounter).
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