Page 17 - September Issue

LODGE 7 LEGAL CORNER There’s more to the video than meet’s the eyes
DANIEL HERBERT
Being a police officer in today’s day and age is wrought with challenges. Nowhere is this more appar- ent than in use-of-force situations. Officers who use deadly force are subject to ever-increasing scrutiny and are being judged in hindsight by persons who lack
the basic knowledge to conduct such critiques. The proliferation of video evidence has helped lead directly to this increase in uninformed criticism. There have been many recent sensational exam-
ples of prosecutors across the nation allowing
their investigations to be driven by the media and public frenzy. What is most troubling for today’s officers is that many are beginning to listen and bow toward following such ill-informed criticism, including prosecuting agencies. The prospect that an officer involved in the use of deadly force today may be charged with a crime is very real and extremely trou- bling.
Officers live and work in a world made smaller every day by tech- nology. Video of an incident can be captured live and simultaneously streamed across the globe. Video is everywhere, and, because of its universal nature, many automatically assume that video evidence is infallible. Our eyes can’t deceive us the critics say – the video is all the proof we need. They scream that the officer is lying about what happened because the officer’s statements are
notsupportedbythevideo.Inreality,nothingcouldbefurtherfrom the truth. The fact is that video evidence will always conflict in some manner with a police officer’s memory of a traumatic incident and, fortunately, science demonstrates this truth.
In most deadly-force investigations, officers are required to pro- vide an account of the incident in a relatively short time period fol- lowing the encounter. Due to the complexity of any investigation
into a police-involved shooting, more often than not officers are compelled to give their first-hand accounts of the incident before reviewing any video evidence. Many times, the video evidence does not surface until a significant amount of time after the officer has provided a statement. When the subse- quently-obtained video evidence conflicts with any portions of the officer’s initial account of the incident, the anti-police crit-
icisms and protests explode.
However, these vocal critics remain ignorant of the undisputed science that underlies how and why an officer’s recollection of a deadly-force encounter may differ significantly from video evidence. Officers who use deadly force undergo tremendous amounts of physical changes that significantly impair their ability to accurately process the incident. Their inaccurate recollection is not evidence of deception; rather it is nature at work. Documented scientific research explains that physiological changes frequently occur in all persons involved in a traumatic event. For example, cor-
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