Dallas officer kills man after mistaking apartment for her own, police say

[hopkinsnhorns 533]

They've got a 15 minute recess to prepare her waterworks before she takes the stand.

[hopkinsnhorns 533]

Just now, hookem17 said:

How long until she starts crying. O/U 5 min. 

Hammer the under, cuzzy.

[Trey3216 15450]

1 minute ago, hookem17 said:

How long until she starts crying. O/U 5 min. 

I don't think She'll make it 1.  

[Constant 6844]

1 hour ago, Vic Mackey said:

Ok thanks. Haven't gotten a chance to watch any of the livestream of the trial today. 

The testimony you’ll want to watch is from Ranger Michael Stoner. 

[Skipper 6406]

Recess to tomorrow.  Bummer.

[hopkinsnhorns 533]

Court is in recess until tomorrow morning.  Will go on Saturday as well for at least part of the day.

[hookem17 485]

Question for the criminal experts. I thought there had been discussion that this was only a murder case? But then the defense moved for directed verdict on all of the lesser offenses, including negligent homicide. 

[SameSame 1745]

15 minutes ago, Constant said:

The testimony you’ll want to watch is from Ranger Michael Stoner. 

Woah shit, just realized I went to high school with that guy.  He didn't go by Michael back then.

[C-Man 27690]

Philip Kingston on FB:

Quote

I haven't made a secret of my position that this case is definitely murder and that the supposed defenses Guyger is putting forward shouldn't even have been mentioned to the jury. Being mistaken as to whose house you're standing in is, in my conception of the universe, per se unreasonable. That is to say, I would be in favor of a bright-line rule that says unlawfully entering the home of another person is unreasonable as a matter of law and that all mistakes flowing from that first mistake are similarly unreasonable.

But I am not on the bench, and if I had been called for that venire, I would never have been seated on the jury. So it's just like, my opinion, man.

My question for those of you who disagree is: how many mistakes of fact does she get to string together before the accumulation of mistakes becomes one giant, steaming pile of unreasonable?

Wrong floor
Wrong apartment
Didn't see that door mat
Why is this door open?

For me, those 4 are already stretching her theory too far, but it gets so much worse when she tries to graft on a self defense claim to her mistake of fact claim. She now says she feared for her life, but Jean was armed only with ice cream, and he was literally a choir boy. He was an accountant whose hobby was singing in church. So where does that fear for her life come from?

I suspect the real explanation is that, once she was mistaken about whose house she was in, she wasn't necessarily more scared than she was convinced that she was entitled to kill an intruder. If it'd been her house, then Texas law would be on her side, which is another great argument for my bright-line rule. If you're entitled to kill an intruder then you have to be perfectly certain of whose house you're in.

And it raises the question of what the law says about Jean's rights. If Jean had been armed with a gun instead of his ice cream and had killed Guyger, he likely wouldn't even have been referred to a grand jury. Texas law, in many ways, makes the rights of the resident vastly superior to the rights of the intruder. I am making an assumption here, but I don't think many of Guyger's supporters would be really chill about overturning the castle doctrine.

One other problem I have with Guyger's defense: reasonableness can be judged from the standpoint of the average person, but the jury is also entitled to judge Guyger as a person supposedly professionally trained in the reasonable use of deadly force. She's not the average person making an average mistake. She's supposed to be less trigger happy than this.

If all this sounds like I'm unsympathetic to Guyger, I don't mean it that way. I feel sure that she hates what happened and would undo it if she could. But I am unsympathetic to what I see as logical and legal gymnastics in her defense and in her supporters' statements.

 

[Cheeseweasel 26439]

1 hour ago, hopkinsnhorns said:

Is any of this relevant?

It is to me!

[Ghost of LL 15669]

41 minutes ago, C-Man said:

Philip Kingston on FB:

 

I think I agree with everything Phillip wrote.

[Continental Op 3934]

I'm pretty sure that if Jean had a piece within arm's reach and had managed to drop a few rounds in Guyger before she had a chance to do the same to him they would have found some way to nail his ass, Castle Doctrine be damned.

 

 

[hopkinsnhorns 533]

Everyone knows racial discrimination trumps actual legislation.  Add to that the fact that cops are basically a protected class held to an entirely different set of laws, and we can all agree Botham Jean wound have been spending the rest of his life in Huntsville State Penitentiary if he had actually killed the white female cop who intruded into his domicile.

[hopkinsnhorns 533]

Interested to know what kind of professional relationship the one juror had with the Texas Ranger that caused the sidebar yesterday.  Whatever it was, the judge didn't find it egregious enough to boot them from the jury, but skeptical me wonders what kind of "Blue Lives Matter" ringer the defense was able to land on jury...  It only takes one to result in a hung jury.

Edited September 26, 2019 by hopkinsnhorns

['stache 22117]

1 hour ago, C-Man said:

Philip Kingston on FB:

 

I don't know who this is, but it's basically my exact thoughts on this entire situation. In my mind, it doesn't even need to be a per se rule of unreasonableness, but I'm still completely dumbfounded how many people seem to think it's a reasonable mistake to go through all of that and still think you're at your own apartment.

Edited September 26, 2019 by 'stache

[Continental Op 3934]

I don't know who this is

Ran for mayor of Dallas this year and lost.

[Bruh Man 3160]

4 hours ago, Vic Mackey said:

I saw the pics of the layouts and the inside of both of their apartments. Were there also pics of what the hallways of both floors looked like leading up to their respective apartments? 

I still don't understand why any of this matters. She could have legitimately thought she was in the wrong apartment and she should still be convicted b/c he did not present a danger to her. If anybody should know how to handle that situation it's a police officer. 

[Gene Parmesan 4062]

I think missing the doormat/plants and whatever else falls into the realm of reasonableness.  Seeing as how the evidence shows that it was a common issue in these apartments unless you believe they fudged their results, and I think expert witnesses in her defense will have a lot of science backing them up with how much the brain tunes out.  But I strongly agree with Phil in this paragraph.

"I suspect the real explanation is that, once she was mistaken about whose house she was in, she wasn't necessarily more scared than she was convinced that she was entitled to kill an intruder. If it'd been her house, then Texas law would be on her side, which is another great argument for my bright-line rule. If you're entitled to kill an intruder then you have to be perfectly certain of whose house you're in."

[hopkinsnhorns 533]

2 minutes ago, Bruh Man said:

I still don't understand why any of this matters. She could have legitimately thought she was in the wrong apartment and she should still be convicted b/c he did not present a danger to her. If anybody should know how to handle that situation it's a police officer. 

This sounds like something that would be said by someone who had never trespassed into the home of a large male black stranger armed with an ice cream spoon. /s

Edited September 26, 2019 by hopkinsnhorns

[Gene Parmesan 4062]

How do the laws work in situations where you are correctly in your own home and kill a spouse who came home early from a business trip, or some other scenario where there is enough reasonableness to be in fear, but you are ultimately killing a non intruder?

[immortal13 4059]

5 minutes ago, Gene Parmesan said:

How do the laws work in situations where you are correctly in your own home and kill a spouse who came home early from a business trip, or some other scenario where there is enough reasonableness to be in fear, but you are ultimately killing a non intruder?

Mistake of fact

[TXSooner518 2455]

6 minutes ago, Gene Parmesan said:

How do the laws work in situations where you are correctly in your own home and kill a spouse who came home early from a business trip, or some other scenario where there is enough reasonableness to be in fear, but you are ultimately killing a non intruder?

You can only use deadly force if you have fear of imminent serious bodily injury or death. You are presumed to have a reasonable fear of those if you know or have reason to believe that the person unlawfully entered your house with force (in other words, not through an open door). 

It would be a fact question as to whether the person had a reasonable fear of those/reason to believe they unlawfully entered with force.

[SDG 3335]

4 hours ago, Vic Mackey said:

Any more on this? I never heard about this and could not find any thing on it. 

Google Uvaldo Perez.

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/2017/05/15/man-shot-after-wrestling-taser-away-from-officer-in-pleasant-grove-police-say/

[Bruh Man 3160]

Can somebody tell me what happened to the toxicology report?

[Gene Parmesan 4062]

Just now, Bruh Man said:

Can somebody tell me what happened to the toxicology report?

Nothing it came back clean.

[Vic Mackey 47849]

31 minutes ago, Bruh Man said:

I still don't understand why any of this matters. She could have legitimately thought she was in the wrong apartment and she should still be convicted b/c he did not present a danger to her. If anybody should know how to handle that situation it's a police officer. 

I 100% agree. But sadly, this matters in this case because of how stupid humans are with their reasoning here. You have people justifying what she did because they said she thought she was in her own home. So you should start to poke holes in how any reasonable person should have assessed the situation differently. And even forgetting the layout of the 2 apartments, the parking garage floor you were on is confusing and anything else, the fucking apartment door you were on was right next to the door.

[Gene Parmesan 4062]

7 minutes ago, TXSooner518 said:

You can only use deadly force if you have fear of imminent serious bodily injury or death. You are presumed to have a reasonable fear of those if you know or have reason to believe that the person unlawfully entered your house with force (in other words, not through an open door). 

It would be a fact question as to whether the person had a reasonable fear of those/reason to believe they unlawfully entered with force.

So in my scenario since the non intruder didn't enter with force so it would be murder?  Is the homeowner responsible to determine entry via force or open door beforehand?  Is unlocked door the same as open?  If you are alone in your house and know it should be empty, what investigative duties do you have when you hear someone else in your house. 

My stance is intentionally killing the wrong person should be a crime, but there appears to be so much gray area that barring witnesses or something it doesn't appear to be a crime?

 

[Vic Mackey 47849]

13 minutes ago, Gene Parmesan said:

Nothing it came back clean.

How long after the incident did they have her submit this?

But I am convinced she was not intoxicated. She was fucking careless because she was horny and wanting some dick. Most likely texting that whole evening leading up to her walking up to the door. She was not paying attention. Had zero to do with "omg poor cop had such a long, tiring shift". Her face was buried in her phone trying to fuck that dude and she lost track of where she was. Absolutely careless and negligent. And someone lost their life because of it.

 

[hopkinsnhorns 533]

Toxicology blood draw was around 3am, about 5 hours after the shooting.

[Gene Parmesan 4062]

I'm not sure.  I think it was a couple hours after the incident.  Maybe enough time for alcohol to cycle out.  Not exactly sure how long it would take to go from intoxicated to zero BAC for someone her size.  The state isn't taking that angle anyways, so it doesn't really matter.

[Constant 6844]

5 minutes ago, Gene Parmesan said:

I'm not sure.  I think it was a couple hours after the incident.  Maybe enough time for alcohol to cycle out.  Not exactly sure how long it would take to go from intoxicated to zero BAC for someone her size.  The state isn't taking that angle anyways, so it doesn't really matter.

It would be more than zero. It wasn’t. 

['stache 22117]

15 minutes ago, Vic Mackey said:

How long after the incident did they have her submit this?

But I am convinced she was not intoxicated. She was fucking careless because she was horny and wanting some dick. Most likely texting that whole evening leading up to her walking up to the door. She was not paying attention. Had zero to do with "omg poor cop had such a long, tiring shift". Her face was buried in her phone trying to fuck that dude and she lost track of where she was. Absolutely careless and negligent. And someone lost their life because of it.

 

There's nothing negligent about pulling out a gun, aiming it at a human being, and pulling the trigger. You better be goddamned sure what your doing when you do that, which is why I think the standard of "reasonableness" has to be higher when you arm yourself with intention to use deadly force. There is a level of responsibility you accept when you carry a firearm, and even moreso when you're a fucking cop.

[TXSooner518 2455]

10 minutes ago, Gene Parmesan said:

I'm not sure.  I think it was a couple hours after the incident.  Maybe enough time for alcohol to cycle out.  Not exactly sure how long it would take to go from intoxicated to zero BAC for someone her size.  The state isn't taking that angle anyways, so it doesn't really matter.

Timeline really doesn't work for her to be drinking unless she was theoretically Lehmberging it up with an open bottle of Ciroc in the car. Barely time for it to kick in. Obliviousness, stupidity, distraction, and then an absurd hairtrigger reaction, but no booze or drugs seem possible.

[C-Man 27690]

1 hour ago, Continental Op said:

 

 

Ran for mayor of Dallas this year and lost.

 

Actually, Kingston was a city councilman who lost his seat last fall. He is a big political ally of Scott Griggs, who did in fact lose the runoff mayoral election.

Kingston is very opinionated and very intelligent but some see him as a bit of a bully. He and Griggs -- and a handful of others -- are the the only reason we don't have the stupid ass Tollway in the Trinity River basin. For that, I'll be forever thankful. If you're familiar with the Dallas City Council thread here you might remember Kingston and I went to HS together in SA.

[HouTex 1912]

You can only use deadly force if you have fear of imminent serious bodily injury or death. You are presumed to have a reasonable fear of those if you know or have reason to believe that the person unlawfully entered your house with force (in other words, not through an open door). 
It would be a fact question as to whether the person had a reasonable fear of those/reason to believe they unlawfully entered with force.

This is the way this issue would be properly addressed in a law school exam question.

Not speaking to this fucked up situation (and I agree with the majority view here that she needs to do some time), but in the situation that worries me most which is if someone enters my home with my doors locked and if I can get to my pistols in time I’m shooting to kill. And without getting into the myriad of possible scenarios above regarding who they could be, did I reasonably feel threatened, etc. no charges would be filed. As it should be.

[TXSooner518 2455]

If all your doors are locked, it would take a really bad fact to rebut the presumption that you could use deadly force, because you would have reason to believe they entered unlawfully with force.

An example of really bad fact would be you can identify the person and it’s your daughter’s boyfriend and there’s a history of her letting him in.

[Chewbacca 7827]

Of course he did 

Yep. He's team blue. No surprise there.

[RPM 26565]

1 hour ago, hopkinsnhorns said:

Toxicology blood draw was around 3am, about 5 hours after the shooting.

Hadn't they already released Jean was smoking dope?

[Chewbacca 7827]

Blood draw 5 fucking hours later? Had to give her a chance to sober up, eh?

[4th and 5 4997]

9 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

While I agree with your sentiment about law enforcement generally, what I see here is a little girl full of bluster and bravado on social media (a job requirement apparently), that, when the rubber hit the road on this occasion, and apparently another, became a panic-ball of ineffectiveness.  Just really incompetent and outright dangerous.  She shot when she shouldn't have and wholly failed to render aid.

Earlier, I had gotten sucked up in the debate about the reasonableness of her initial mistake.  I think reasonable minds can differ there and that means that you can't really rest a judgment on that.

But if you set that aside, her actions subsequent to opening the door leave her open to criticism and criminal penalty.

I'm also and have always been a bit uncomfortable with "castle doctrine" and "stand your ground laws" that essentially give carte blanche to blast someone in your own home without exercising any or much care or caution.

This is where I'm at. The mistake before, I can excuse as reasonable.

But the jury may find her use of deadly force not reasonable, and she will not get the benefit of the Castle Doctrine presumption and instruction in self defense law

4 hours ago, hookem17 said:

Question for the criminal experts. I thought there had been discussion that this was only a murder case? But then the defense moved for directed verdict on all of the lesser offenses, including negligent homicide. 

That's their job. Even if no evidence of lesser included offenses. Routinely requested, routinely denied.

2 hours ago, Gene Parmesan said:

How do the laws work in situations where you are correctly in your own home and kill a spouse who came home early from a business trip, or some other scenario where there is enough reasonableness to be in fear, but you are ultimately killing a non intruder?

If the use of force is based on a reasonable belief existing at the time, even if wrong....not guilty.

[Steel Shank 9533]

22 hours ago, Lobo said:

You obviously choose to eat hot dogs like that out of myriad reasons why you hate yourself.  It's all too convenient, you ask me...

You're just jelly.

[Deej 77676]

Guy dies for simply being at home, eating ice cream, and watching football. No way she should walk, but she will. No excuse for her actions. By her own admission, she fucked up. There should be a penalty for that 

Edited September 27, 2019 by Deej

[immortal13 4059]

1 minute ago, Deej said:

Guy dies for simply being at home, eating ice cream, and watching football. No way she should walk, but she will. No excuse for her actions. By her own admission, she fucked up. There should be a penalty for that 

Dude, he was doing illegal drugs....mind altering illegal drugs

[Deej 77676]

More importantly, he was black.

[TwiceHorn 31994]

2 hours ago, 4th and 5 said:

This is where I'm at. The mistake before, I can excuse as reasonable.

But the jury may find her use of deadly force not reasonable, and she will not get the benefit of the Castle Doctrine presumption and instruction in self defense law

That's their job. Even if no evidence of lesser included offenses. Routinely requested, routinely denied.

If the use of force is based on a reasonable belief existing at the time, even if wrong....not guilty.

Do you fail to preserve error if you don't move for directed verdict on lesser-includeds? Or is it just an abundance of caution?

[pops 7121]

I'm going to go full on gay here, but the most interesting thing to me in this thread is the different Americas so many reasonable posters here grew up in. 

I don't really like cops and I think the militarization of most police forces is regarded, but I don't hate them. And I don't want this bitch to burn just because she is white and fucked up and killed a black dude.  

I just don't know the world some of y'all grew up in and I think that sucks. I'm not naive. I know not everyone grew up like me, but fuck. In can't imagine the reality some of you have to deal with on a daily basis. That sucks and I think we can do better to make this little chunk of dirt better for everyone. 

Back to your regularly scheduled programming. 

[Trey3216 15450]

1 minute ago, pops said:

I'm going to go full on gay here, but the most interesting thing to me in this thread is the different Americas so many reasonable posters here grew up in. 

I don't really like cops and I think the militarization of most police forces is regarded, but I don't hate them. And I don't want this bitch to burn just because she is white and fucked up and killed a black dude.  

I just don't know the world some of y'all grew up in and I think that sucks. I'm not naive. I know not everyone grew up like me, but fuck. In can't imagine the reality some of you have to deal with on a daily basis. That sucks and I think we can do better to make this little chunk of dirt better for everyone. 

Back to your regularly scheduled programming. 

I’m not gonna comment here.  

[4th and 5 4997]

17 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Do you fail to preserve error if you don't move for directed verdict on lesser-includeds? Or is it just an abundance of caution?

It doesn’t preserve error on appeal. 

it is just a swing for the fence with little chance of success. But no harm in taking a cut at it.

[4th and 5 4997]

If you care to take the time, here is where the defense is headed in the next few days

 

=============

DR. MARC GREEN, DEFENSE EXPERT:

 

 

Is It A Gun? Or Is It A Wallet?"
Perceptual Factors In Police Shootings of Unarmed Suspects

 

Marc Green

 

 

Seminar Available on this topic.

 

Police officers sometimes shoot unarmed suspects in error. The majority, about 71%¹, occur at night under poor visibility conditions. In one common scenario, a suspect suddenly produces an object in his hand. The officer, believing the object to be a weapon, fires at the suspect. The officer then approaches, only to see that "gun" was actually something as innocuous as a driver's license or wallet. 

 

The subsequent inquiry must judge whether the officer acted reasonably. One component of reasonableness is the officer's perception; should s/he have correctly recognized that the object was not a gun. The visibility conditions, especially light levels, usually become a central issue. Investigators often attempt to assess visibility from witness statements such as "It was bright," "I could see three blocks down the street," "There was enough light to read my notebook," etc. 

 

In reality, these statements reveal little about visibility conditions at the time of the shooting. A realistic assessment requires an in-depth analysis of specific situational factors that determined perception. Roughly speaking, these factors can be divided into two categories, sensory and cognitive. Sensory processing is the initial stage, where light enters the eye and forms an image. When people speak of visibility conditions, they are usually talking about light levels and other factors that affect registration of the image information. 

 

However, seeing involves much more than an image, and visibility is not the only factor affecting the officer's ability to discriminate between a gun and an innocuous object. The quality of the image and its contents provide only raw sensory information that the viewer must next interpret. This requires use of memory and of other innate cognition processes, most importantly expectation. Whether the officer will see a wallet or a gun depends as much on his knowledge and experiences as it does on the sensory factors. 

 

Sensory Factors

 

Inquiries often focus on light levels. They presume that if lighting were sufficient, then the officer should have correctly identified the object. The mistake was then due to negligence or at least improper care.

 

This logic is flawed because amount of light is only one sensory factor in determining visibility, and it is often a relatively minor one. All things being equal, it is true that people see better in brighter light. But things are seldom equal because many situational factors are more important than overall light levels.

 

1. People see contrast, not light. In a real sense, people do not see light; instead, they see contrast, the difference in light coming from an object and its background. As the Illuminating Engineering Handbook says, "Contrast detection is the basic task from which all other visual behaviors are derived." Contrast is the property that allows people to detect shapes and contours and ultimately to recognize objects. 

 

Viewers see most objects in reflected light. A source, such as a lamp, emits light that bounces off a surface and reaches the eye. To see contrast well, the there must usually be a large difference in reflectance, the amount of light that is reflected, off the object and background. A piece of coal is highly visible against a white sheet because the coal reflects very little light while the sheet reflects almost all of the light. Further, the coal against a sheet will be highly visible even in dim light. It is difficult to see in fog even in daylight because the contrast is low. Contrast, not overall light level, is frequently the factor that matters more. 

 

Witness statements about general lighting conditions are often irrelevant. The only important light is the light that reflects off the object and its background because that is what determines contrast. A witness statement saying that he could read his newspaper or see people walking a block away reveal little about visibility of the object in the suspect's hand. Moreover, both object reflectance and background change with viewpoint, so a witness standing at a different location may not be seeing what the officer saw.

 

2. The location of the light is often more important than the amount of light. Light location determines whether the contrast will be negative or positive. Negative contrast (also called "silhouette contrast") occurs when there is a dark object on a bright background. Newspapers, for example, are printed in negative contrast. Positive contrast (also called "reverse silhouette contrast") occurs when there is a bright object on a dark background. 

 

The difference between the light location and the two types of contrast is often critical in determining object recognition. Suppose the suspect is standing in front of a lighted doorway, car headlight or a streetlight. Then the light is behind the suspect, and the officer will see the object in negative contrast. The object in the hand will appear only as a silhouette and its detail will be invisible. Most importantly, objects of similar general shape will be highly confusable. For example, a wallet and a 25 mm automatic pistol have a similar square outline. An officer who sees a suspect's hand emerge from a pocket with an object having a square profile will have difficulty determining whether it is a gun or a wallet. The straight lines and the square edge are the most salient perceptions.

 

If the light is primarily in front of the suspect, it will strike the object and reflect to the officer's eye. S/he will have a much better chance of seeing the fine details and discriminating one object from another, i.e., a gun from a wallet. The more reflective the object, the better the recognition. If the object in the hand is dark, however, then positive contrast will be minimal regardless of light position.

 

3. Lighting affects perception of outline shape and detail differently. As light level decreases, visibility decreases much more rapidly for fine detail than for general shape. It can still be possible to clearly discern an outline but difficult to see the specific pieces or components. For an officer who views the object in the suspect's hand, there might well be enough contrast to see the rectangular shape of a gun/wallet, but there may not be enough contrast to see the fine detail that discriminates a gun from a wallet. 

 

4. Perception of general shape is faster. People mentally process the general shape of an object faster than the fine details. Everyone has had the experience of "recognizing" a familiar person and then starting to wave or say hello, but then realizing that it was actually a stranger with the same general build, hair, etc. This occurs because the visual system transmits information about larger image areas faster from the eye to the brain. Roughly speaking, viewers make initial recognition after seeing the general outline and before the details can catch up. 

 

An officer who must make a potentially life-and-death decision reacts quickly. He is likely to make a decision based on the visual information that is first perceived, which will always be the general outline and shape. If the light is in front of the suspect then the officer will still see the general shape first may be forced to make a rapid decision before the objects details become visible. If the light is behind the suspect, of course, then the general shape is the only information available to decide whether it is a gun or is a wallet.

 

5. Motion impairs perception. If an object is moving as you click the shutter on a camera, the resulting image may blur. If the suspect is moving his hand, then the object he is holding will produce a similar effect in the eye. The image is degraded, lowering visibility and impairing recognition. Movement most degrades fine details, the very information needed to distinguish a gun from a wallet. 

 

6. Light adaptation impairs perception. The eye sees contrast best when it is adapted to the same light level as the current scene. For example, a person walking into a movie theater during the day will at first see little more than blackness. After a few moments, the theater becomes brighter and objects become visible. This occurs because the eye adjusts sensitivity to the prevailing light level through the process of light adaptation. Visibility loss is greater when the difference between adapting level and viewing level is high and when there has been little time to adapt.

 

An officer's contrast perception will be reduced if s/he has spent time looking at a brighter area prior to the time when the object must be recognized. Even time spent viewing a streetlight or writing on a sheet of white paper (which is highly reflective) could raise adaptation level and impair visibility of subsequently viewed objects.

 

While these six factors are important in most situations, there are others that may be important in some specific conditions. One is glare from a light source that is far brighter than the ambient level. As any driver knows, for example, a passing car's headlights can lower contrast perception and may also destroy dark adaptation and lower visibility for several minutes. Another is "masking," which occurs when a patterned background lies behind the object. The viewer will have more difficulty seeing the object clearly amid the clutter. Finally, there are a wide variety of other possible factors, weather, age, viewer eyesight and spectacles, etc., that may also be relevant in some situations.

 

Cognitive Factors

 

Perception is the processing of applying stored knowledge to the sensory input and forming an interpretation. Once the image is sensed, the officer must decide whether it represents a gun or some other object based on what he knows and what he has learned through experience. When the sensory information is uncertain or ambiguous, as with low visibility, the cognitive factors grow in importance.

 

This is a problem-solving task that humans address by using innate cognitive strategies. In psychology they are called "heuristics," general rules of thumb, or "biases." The term "bias" is not meant in the negative sense of everyday language. In cognitive psychology, a "bias" is a reasoning strategy that aids in quickly arriving at a correct answer. In critical situations, it is dangerous to engage in the slow process of conscious reasoning. Instead, the human mind has evolved heuristics and biases to speed the interpretation and to make sense of a complex situation.

 

Here are some of the major cognitive heuristics and biases. It is important to remember that these are innate and "normal," in the sense that virtually all humans rely on them heavily. Further, they operate unconsciously, so that most people are unaware that their interpretations are affected by such operations.

 

1. Experience creates expectation. People become skilled at their jobs through learning and development of expectation. Beginners act in a "controlled" mode, where they must stop and consciously think about every decision. Their performance is slow and inefficient and usually errorful. With learning, people switch to a fast and "automatic" mode where responses seem to occur without conscious thought or decision. Part of the shift occurs because the skilled person learns what to expect, and can act without the need for conscious decision-making, such as recognizing objects. 

 

While it is often said, "see is believing," it is equally true that "believing is seeing." Officers who have previously been in situations where a suspect was armed, for example, have more reason to believe that future suspects will be armed and are far more likely to expect to see a gun. However, the experience need not be firsthand. If the station house talk dwells in instances of suspects with weapons, officers shot by suspects, etc., this can also sway expectation in favor of interpreting indistinct objects as guns.

 

2. The "availability heuristic" primes perception. People must use information stored in memory to make decisions. In a critical situation, they will most likely use the first information that comes to mind. One factor that causes quick recall is that the information was recently acquired. In general, the most recently learned information is what most readily comes to mind, i.e. is most available in memory. Recently read or heard information is the most available and is likely to have the strongest influence on decision-making and on interpretation of low visibility objects. 

 

For an officer going out on patrol, the most available information may originate in the pre-patrol briefing. For example, the officers may be reminded to keep an eye out for a dangerous suspect of a specific description or that there have been reports of violent crimes in a specific area. When the officer later must make a split-second decision, s/he draws on memory in order interpret the ambiguous visual information. S/he is especially likely to perceive a gun if the suspect fits the general description of the dangerous suspect or is located in the area where violent crimes occur.

 

3. "Confirmation Bias" strengthens preconceived beliefs. Confirmation bias refers to the tendency to seek information that supports an already held belief and to avoid or dismiss evidence that contradicts it. It is perhaps the most powerful cognitive bias, and has been found to be a source of error and accident across a wide spectrum of human activities. 

 

If an officer believes that a person is likely to be a suspect (he matches a description, is located in a high crime area, acting strangely, etc.) s/he will likely form an opinion that the person is potentially dangerous. Once this belief takes hold, the officer will look for evidence to support the belief and ignore, avoid, or rationalize evidence that contradicts it. When the person appears with an object in his hand, it will be interpreted as a gun. This conclusion confirms the initial belief that the suspect is dangerous.

 

4. Payoffs affect decision-making. A person who must decide under uncertain conditions, such as low visibility, faces the quandary that is depicted schematically in the Table I. S/he must decide whether a "signal" is present or whether there is only "noise." (The terms "signal" and "noise" arose from the "Signal Detection Theory," a mathematical analysis originally used as a model of radar operators - how did they decide whether there was an enemy plane on the screen or merely background noise.) For an officer who sees the object in the viewer's hand, the "signal" is a gun and the noise is an innocuous object.

 

The situation can produce one of four possible outcomes. The officer viewer will be correct if he says "yes" when the signal is there and it really is ("hit") or says "no" and it really isn't ("correct rejection.") There are also two kinds of errors. The officer can say "yes" when there is no gun ("false alarm") or "no" when there is a gun ("miss.")

 

The officer must consider the payoff consequences of each response. If s/he makes a correct "yes response" he may save his own life while a correct "no" leaves the situation as status quo. Of course, the officer will attempt to be correct, but, since the situation is uncertain, s/he must also consider the consequences of an error. There are two types of error possible. If s/he makes a false alarm (says gun when there is no gun), the officer shoots an unarmed and possibly innocent suspect and may face legal problems, etc. If s/he makes a miss (does not shoot when there is a gun), s/he, a fellow officer or bystander may end up wounded or even dead.

 

The officers have no objective way to assign objective values to the outcomes of the "yes" and "no" responses. Is it worse to shoot an unarmed suspect than to have a fellow officer shot? Is there any worse outcome than being shot and killed? If expectation, availability and confirmation effects are operating, then the sum of the mental processing is likely to weigh toward seeing the object as a gun.

 

Conclusion

 

Hindsight, as they say, has 20-20 vision. After the outcome of an event is already known, it is difficult to put oneself in the place of the people who must decide on action before the event when there is uncertainty due to poor visibility. The officer confronting a suspect at night has a difficult decision because he does not have the luxury that subsequent investigators have of knowing with certainty whether or not the object is a gun. Instead, s/he must act based on uncertain visual information. To resolve the uncertainty, the officer will draw on the innate cognitive processes that all humans have evolved to help us make quick decision under stress. These heuristics and biases function automatically because there is no time for conscious decision making. There is only time to react.

 

The reasonableness of action cannot be assessed by generalities about lighting conditions or post hoc analysis based on what is known now, after the event, rather than what was then, before the event. Proper analysis requires a detailed reconstruction of the visual factors described above and an assessment of the cognitive process operating at the time. The task of reconstructing the past can be difficult and investigators are prone to their own set of cognitive biases, as I describe elsewhere². Ultimately, the reasonableness of any behavior can only be understood by the physical constraints of the situation and by the likely operation normal human cognition. 

 

When a police shooting occur, inquiries frequently draw on an expert in police procedures, etc. However, a scientific and human factors analysis of the situation may be more revealing, more objective and more informative. When a police officer misperceives an object as a gun, it is a perceptual error, not a police error.

 

Edited September 27, 2019 by 4th and 5

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