Point of view is critical to assessing eyewitness testimony, all the more when a camera makes eyewitnesses of us all.<\/p>\n
This point has been made here before, and now comes another excellent example.\u00a0 It is the nature of our arrogant species to say, \u201cI saw the whole thing. If what you say happened had actually occurred, I would have seen it.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t see it. Ergo, it didn\u2019t happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s all too easy to for us to forget that from our angle, our POV, what someone else saw may have been blocked from our own line of sight, or simply ignored because we weren\u2019t looking for it (inattentional blindness).<\/p>\n
In this case, the POV of the patrol car dashcam leads us \u201cwitnesses via video\u201d to see \u201cOMG! A trigger happy jackbooted thug pointing his gun at an innocent citizen for no reason!\u201d<\/p>\n
But the POV of the officer\u2019s bodycam shows us what HE saw\u2026and now we realize that his swift draw of his service Glock may well have prevented the officer and\/or the motorist being shot.<\/p>\n
Watch and learn. It\u2019s the sort of lesson all of us who constitute the vast Jury of Public Opinion cannot review too often\u2026and it can impact peace officer and armed citizen alike.<\/p>\n