The Fallability of Eyewitnesses
If this account in the Sacramento Bee is factual, it sure brings out how fallible eyewitness testimony can be.
Five prison guards were fired after an investigation over the beating of a handcuffed inmate. Three witnesses testified they saw the prisoner on the ground being kicked and beaten. The problem is physical evidence- including a statement from the prisoner himself- doesn't corroborate the witness testimony.
What little physical injury there was to the inmate isn't consistent with a brutal beating. The inmate himself seems to have said he wasn't beaten. The guards have been re- hired. So why did the witnesses insist they saw a brutal beating?
I'm not sure what was going on in their minds but I might have wrote here before that two people can watch the same incident and come to different conclusions. They can literally see different things happening. This has to be one of the more extreme examples of that.
posted by Fred Mangels @ 10:04 AM
1 comments
1 Comments:
"Henchman Of Justice" says,
No less fallability than when two or more cops show-up on any scene for any reason and begin to play the "he said, she said" game based on their "numbers to lie and get away with it", at least until the victims exposes the rogue copper toppers with technolog and makes the elected officials look conspiratorial with another elected official's department (Sheriff).
HOJ
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