Page 23 - March 2018 FOP Newsletter

shot from a distance and details of the struggle are hard to make out, but it’s clear that the subject is thrusting his leg and trying to break free. An officer can be heard telling him to “relax” and “get your foot down.”
The cameraman yells at the subject, “Come on, guy! Quit mov- ing, man! They’re gonna f***in’ kill you, bro. Quit moving!” After 36 seconds, the film ends with the struggle still underway. No ex- planation is given about the circumstances or the ultimate out- come.
Version #2, originally shown hours later, is a 2-minute, 28- second clip from a TV newscast about the incident, produced by professional journalists at a local NBC affiliate. Cell phone foot- age from the conflict is incorporated, but the reporter provides context. The subject, she explains, was initially pulled over for a traffic violation and proved to have an outstanding warrant. When officers tried to handcuff him, he broke loose and was then taken to the ground. Dash cam footage is included showing this occurring. A supervisor from the officers’ department is inter- viewed, explaining why officers behaved as they did and empha- sizing that they were “very professional” and “did what they had to do to get the individual into custody.”
After experiencing one or the other of these versions, the study subjects then took the “cynicism test” again and were also asked if they thought the officers involved committed misdemeanor assault (intentionally, wantonly, or recklessly causing physical injury).
After thoroughly analyzing the data, the researchers confirmed that there was a significant difference in cynicism regarding po- lice between the group that viewed the unfiltered social media posting and those who saw the professional broadcast. In the baseline testing, “the level of cynicism was fairly equal” between the two viewing groups. But after seeing the respective videos, the average level of cynicism and mistrust among the group that saw the social media footage significantly “increased, while the
cynicism score for the broadcast media group decreased slight- ly” from their pre-viewing levels, the study reports.
In addition, “a greater percentage of the participants in the so- cial media group felt that the officers committed misdemeanor assault than did participants in the mainstream video group,” the researchers write. “Of the 93 participants, 33 (35.5 percent) reported that they believed the officers violated [the criminal] statute, 26 of whom were in the social media group and 8 of whom were in the broadcast media group.”
The study cautions that given society’s technological trend and the “media exposure explosion,” there must be concern not only with what is being viewed by the public and how police are portrayed, but also with how information is delivered to citizen consumers. “Social media is becoming an integral part of how in- formation is presented to the public,” the researchers note. “Raw citizen videos of police actions have added a new dimension to the scrutiny of police behavior. By creating a greater understand- ing of how cynicism develops...we can focus on a direction that is conducive to reducing the negative reinforcers that may contrib- ute to the overall effectiveness in the criminal justice system.”
One of the biggest things that I took from the study was that context is an important factor influencing people’s opinions of a given situation. The more people know about the dynamics surrounding the use of force situation, the greater the likelihood that the public will be more accepting of the officer’s decision to use force. It is irresponsible for media outlets to publish video which has been edited to eliminate context and depicts only the most inflammatory images. We can’t control what is produced by the media, but we can hope that journalistic integrity will recog- nize the importance of providing context to its broadcasts, espe- cially those involving the use of force by a police officer, which will always be more complex than a clip of a video. d
CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ FEBRUARY 2018 23