Video Review – ICE Incident

Objective use-of-force incident analysis is significantly complicated by the inherent limitations of human cognition under stress and the technical “frailties” of video technology, both of which can lead to biased or inaccurate hindsight reviews.

The Blind Spots of Justice: 5 Reasons Your Intuition About Police Video is Challenged

1. Introduction: The Perspective Gap

In the wake of any high-profile use-of-force incident, a familiar cycle begins: a video clip appears on social media, triggers “emotional conductivity”—the viral spread of outrage that anchors beliefs before facts emerge—and the public demands immediate judgment. As a forensic analyst, I must identify the fundamental flaw in this reaction: the “Perspective Gap.”

This gap is a biological and technical incompatibility between the viewer and the participant. As a viewer, you are observing a “global event” with the luxury of high-definition replays, pausing, and hindsight. The officer on the screen is navigating an “irreducibly indeterminate” survival event in real-time. To find justice, we must bridge the divide between what the lens records and what the human brain can actually process under the pressure of autonomic certainties.

2. The Biological Hijack: Why Officers Only See “100 Bits” of Reality

When an officer enters a life-threatening encounter, the brain undergoes a mechanical shift that overrides conscious intent. While the human eye can take in roughly 10 million bits of environmental data per second, the brain under extreme stress filters this down to approximately “100 bits.” This is not a lapse in judgment; it is a physiological necessity known as “tunnel vision.”

This biological hijack is governed by the OODA loop: Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act. In high-pressure environments, the “reaction lag”—the time required to cycle through these stages—ranges from 0.2 to 0.5 seconds. Because the “Observe” data changes even as the brain is attempting to “Act,” an officer is often reacting to a reality that existed half a second ago.

Furthermore, forensic research indicates that up to 90% of officers in lethal encounters experience perceptual distortions, such as time dilation or auditory exclusion. This leads to confabulation—where the amygdala triggers actions before the conscious mind is aware, and the brain later “fills in” memory gaps with logical guesses. When an officer’s statement differs from the video, it is frequently a biological reconstruction of a fragmented survival event, not intentional deception. We must also account for ego depletion; when an officer’s cognitive resources are exhausted by fatigue or stress, they possess less patience and may resort to force more rapidly.

“Under extreme stress, the mind filters out peripheral information to focus exclusively on a perceived threat. This ‘laser focus’ means officers capture data for survival, not for perfect recall.”

3. The Video Fallacy: Why Your Eyes Deceive You at 8 Frames Per Second

We often treat video footage as an infallible record, yet forensic analysis reveals video is merely a 2D encoded approximation of a 3D reality. Digital files use GOP (Group of Pictures) compression, which discards “redundant” data to save space. This means the viewer is not seeing a continuous stream of new images, but rather an encoded estimation of movement.

• The Illusion of Intent: Many videos record at low frame rates, or variable frame rates, such as 8 frames per second (fps) many CCTV systems. At this speed, split-second intermediate movements are entirely missing. A hand reaching for a waistband can appear to move instantaneously or “jerky,” creating an “illusion of intent” that may not have existed in real-time 3D space.
• The Illusion of Deliberation: Media outlets frequently use slow-motion replays. By stretching a millisecond decision into several seconds, the video suggests the officer had ample time for a “Quiet Eye” focus—the stable gaze used by experts to mitigate force—when they were actually operating in a state of autonomic crisis. Slow motion manufactures a narrative of malice where only a reactive flinch existed.

“Video evidence, as powerful as it is to the human psyche, is merely a piece of evidence. It is not the evidence.” — Sergeant Jamie Borden (Ret.)

4. The Real Predictor: Why Suspect Behavior Outweighs Identity

While demographic factors dominate public discourse, systematic literature reviews of 52 major studies reveal that suspect resistance and behavior are the #1 predictors of force. Officers calibrate their response to match “observable actions” because they cannot read minds.

Research utilizing force factor coding shows a 75% correspondence between a suspect’s resistance level and the officer’s response. Interestingly, the data shows that when officers are provided with accurate dispatch information prior to an encounter, demographic biases often disappear entirely. This “Human Factor” intervention allows the officer to orient their OODA loop more effectively, reducing the reliance on split-second heuristics and decreasing the likelihood of errors.

5. The “National Standards” Myth: The Law vs. The Manual

A persistent myth in American law enforcement is the existence of binding “national standards.” In reality, organizations like the IACP or PERF provide recommendations, but these are not legal mandates. An officer’s conduct must be evaluated through the Primacy of Departmental Standards.

An officer is judged by the specific policies, training curricula, and lesson plans provided by their own agency. From a forensic and legal perspective, calling for a violation of “best practices” from an outside entity is legally shaky and can undermine a report’s credibility in court. True accountability requires determining if the officer followed the training they were actually given—or if the department’s policy itself failed the human at the center of the crisis.

6. The “Common Thread” Solution: A Better Way to Find the Truth

To maintain objectivity and quantify an officer’s conduct, experts should utilize the Common Thread framework. This shifts the focus from “emotional conductivity” to an evidence-based reconstruction of the event across five pillars:

1. Perceptions: What did the officer perceive? (Triggered by suspect resistance).
2. Context: What were the environmental factors? (e.g., crime rates, lighting, icy conditions, or weather).
3. Expectations: How did the environment and suspect behavior shape what the officer believed was about to happen?
4. Decisions/Actions: Were the choices reasonable based on the above?
5. Performance/Behavior: How did the officer execute their tactics and conduct themselves post-incident?

By anchoring an investigation in these pillars, we can distinguish between an honest mistake—an acceptable deviation based on human performance limits—and an indefensible breach of professional standards.”Our mantra is: Educate and Explain vs. Excuse and Advocate.”

Conclusion: Beyond the Viral Clip

True accountability in the age of video requires video literacy—the ability to recognize the limits of both the camera and the biological engine of the human brain. We must move away from snap judgments fueled by social media and toward a dispassionate, evidence-based understanding of critical incidents.

As we look forward, we must ask a difficult question: Is our justice system currently equipped to handle the biological realities of human performance, or are we continuing to judge split-second survival decisions through the distorted lens of the unknown video technicalities during replay?

Cognitive Limitations and Human Factors

Analyzing use-of-force incidents requires understanding that officers operate in high-stress, dynamic environments where split-second decisions are influenced by physiological and psychological constraints.

• Perceptual Distortions and Tunnel Vision: Under extreme stress, officers often experience “tunnel vision,” where the mind filters out peripheral information to focus exclusively on a perceived threat. Studies indicate that up to 90% of officers in lethal encounters experience perceptual distortions, such as time dilation (time slowing down) or diminished sound. In such states, the human brain may only process approximately 100 bits of information out of the 10 million available in the environment.
• The Decision-Making Process: Officers often utilize the OODA loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) in fractions of a second, with reaction times typically ranging from 0.2 to 0.5 seconds. Post-event analysis often applies hindsight bias, assuming an officer “knew” specific details—like the direction a vehicle’s wheels were turned—that may have been impossible to process in real-time.
• Memory and “Confabulation”: Stress-induced cognitive strain can lead to “confabulated” statements. This is not intentional lying, but rather the brain’s attempt to reconstruct a fragmented memory of a survival-oriented event. Research shows that some officers may not even remember making the decision to shoot because the amygdala can trigger actions before the conscious mind is aware of them.
• Ego Depletion and Intuition: When an officer’s cognitive resources are depleted (a state known as “ego depletion”), they may show less patience and react more quickly with force. Furthermore, many officers, particularly recruits, rely on intuitive rather than analytical reasoning during crises, which can lead them to consider very few coercive options before acting.

The Frailties of Video Evidence

While video is a powerful investigative tool, it is often misinterpreted as an infallible “truth” rather than a limited technical approximation of reality.

• Technical Distortions: Video is a 2D, encoded approximation created by algorithms that discard “redundant” data to save space, a process known as compression. This can result in dropped frames, distorted motion, and lost details. Low frame rates (e.g., 8 frames per second) can make movements appear jerkier than they were and may miss split-second impacts entirely.
• Perspective and Depth: Because video is two-dimensional, it inherently distorts depth, speed, and positioning. A camera angle may make an officer appear to be in front of a vehicle when they were actually to the side, or it may fail to capture the audible cues an officer was reacting to.
• The Illusion of Deliberation: Media enhancements, such as slow-motion replays, can be highly deceptive. By slowing down a split-second event, video creates a false narrative of deliberation or malice, suggesting the officer had ample time to choose a different course of action when, in reality, they had only milliseconds.
• Video Literacy: Experts emphasize the need for “video literacy,” noting that video captures a “global event” that can be paused and rewound—a luxury the officer did not have on the scene. Analysis that fails to account for these frailties risks succumbing to “emotional conductivity,” where initial outrage fueled by a viral clip anchors a viewer’s beliefs before all facts are known.

Mitigating These Challenges

To overcome these complications, investigators are encouraged to use structured frameworks like the “Common Thread” theory. This approach anchors the analysis in the officer’s actual perceptions, the environmental context, and the expectations shaped by the suspect’s behavior, rather than relying solely on the “global” view provided by video. By focusing on what the officer could have reasonably known and seen in the moment, investigators can distinguish between honest mistakes, acceptable deviations, and indefensible breaches of professional standards.

Suspect behavior is consistently identified in the sources as the most predictive factor in an officer’s decision to use force, often outweighing other variables such as officer personality or suspect demographics. It serves as the primary catalyst that triggers the officer’s perception of threat and their subsequent tactical response.

The role of suspect behavior can be understood through the following key insights provided by the sources:

1. The Primary Predictor of Force

A systematic literature review of 52 studies concluded that while many factors influence use-of-force decisions, suspect resistance and behavior are the most consistent predictors. Research using “force factor coding” indicates that in approximately 75% of cases, the level of force used by an officer directly corresponds (within a -1 to +1 ratio) to the level of resistance offered by the suspect. This suggests that officers generally calibrate their use of coercion to match the suspect’s observable actions.

2. Behavior vs. Demographic Factors

The sources highlight that while factors like ethnicity receive significant attention, their influence is often less consistent than that of behavior. Some studies suggest that:

• Behavior over Ethnicity: In some analyses, the suspect’s behavior and resistance were the main causes of force, while ethnicity did not show a significant independent influence.
• Triggering Action: Resistance such as non-compliance, verbal defiance, or physical aggression acts as the “primary trigger,” whereas demographics may lead to contradictory findings in different contexts.

3. Perceptions of Dangerousness

Suspect behavior informs an officer’s perception of risk, particularly when combined with other factors:

• Mental Health and Intoxication: Suspects exhibiting erratic behavior due to mental health issues or intoxication are often subject to increased vigilance. While mental illness itself may not always increase force, the resistance associated with these states often leads to higher levels of coercion because the behavior is perceived as more dangerous or unpredictable.
• Split-Second Interpretation: Officers must interpret behavior in real-time without the benefit of knowing a suspect’s intent. They act on “observable actions” because they cannot read minds, meaning a suspect’s movement or non-compliance is the data point used for survival-based decision-making.

4. The “Common Thread” Framework

In the “Common Thread” theory, suspect behavior is a foundational element used to anchor hindsight reviews. It functions in two specific ways within this framework:

• Perceptions: The suspect’s actions (e.g., reaching for an object or refusing commands) are what the officer perceives as a threat.
• Expectations: The suspect’s behavior, combined with the environment (such as a high-crime neighborhood), shapes the officer’s expectations of what might happen next, informing their decision to either escalate or mitigate force.

5. Limitations in Analysis

The sources warn that analyzing suspect behavior through video can be deceptive. Video captures a “global event” that can be paused, but the officer on the scene reacts to the immediate dynamics of the behavior as it unfolds in milliseconds. Expert analysis emphasizes that an officer’s response should be evaluated based on the suspect’s actions at the time, rather than through hindsight-biased narratives that assume the officer knew the suspect’s intent or the final outcome.

The review of high-profile use-of-force incidents, such as the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by ICE Agent Jonathan Ross in Minnesota, demonstrates why objectivity is both difficult to achieve and essential for a fair investigation. The sources highlight that without a structured, evidence-based approach, the analysis of such cases is often compromised by emotional reactions, technical limitations of video, and the application of non-existent standards.

Navigating Emotional Conductivity and False Narratives

In the Minnesota case, the rapid spread of viral videos led to “emotional conductivity,” where public outrage or defensiveness anchored beliefs before all facts were known. Experts in the sources note that once a passionate belief takes root, it becomes nearly impossible to navigate toward the truth. This polarization often gives rise to false narratives based on partial video evidence, such as claims that the threat was “manufactured” or that the officer had ample time to react.

Objectivity in the Good case is further complicated by:

• The Illusion of Deliberation: Media enhancements, like slow-motion replays, can create a false sense of time, suggesting Agent Ross had seconds to deliberate when the event actually unfolded in under one second.
• Video Frailties: The bystander and CCTV footage are 2D, encoded approximations of reality that discard data through compression. These technical “frailties” can distort depth, speed, and positioning, making actions appear different from how the officer perceived them in 3D space.

Anchoring Analysis in Departmental Standards

A critical component of objectivity is evaluating an officer’s conduct against tangible, department-specific standards rather than vague “national standards” or subjective “best practices”. The sources emphasize that:

• National standards do not exist: Organizations like the IACP provide recommendations, but they are not legally binding mandates. Claiming an officer violated a “national standard” in the Good case would undermine the report’s credibility.
• Primacy of Training: Agent Ross must be judged by the policies and training curricula specifically provided by ICE. If his training prioritized rapid response to vehicle threats, he cannot be objectively faulted for failing to use de-escalation techniques if they were not part of his mandated protocol.

Utilizing the “Common Thread” Framework

To ensure a dispassionate review of the Minnesota shooting, the sources advocate for the “Common Thread” framework, which anchors the investigation in the officer’s actual perceptions and the situational context.

1. Suspect Behavior as the Primary Trigger: Scientific literature across 52 studies identifies suspect resistance and behavior as the most consistent predictor of force. In the Good case, an objective review must focus on Good’s non-compliance and the sudden movement of the SUV as the primary catalyst for the shooting.
2. Context and Expectations: The environmental context—such as the icy conditions and the high-stakes nature of an immigration enforcement operation—shaped Ross’s expectations of a threat.
3. Human Factors: Objectivity requires acknowledging cognitive limitations under stress, such as tunnel vision or the OODA loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act), which may have limited the information Ross could process in the milliseconds before he fired.

The Goal: “Educate and Explain vs. Excuse and Advocate”

The overarching goal of an objective investigation is to clarify the officer’s actions through evidence rather than defending or condemning them outright. By using tools like the Common Thread and focusing on documented departmental standards, investigators can distinguish between an honest mistake (an acceptable deviation) and an indefensible breach of professional standards. In the Minnesota case, this disciplined approach ensures that the “good, the bad, and the ugly” of the incident are identified based on facts rather than public pressure or emotional bias.

The Psychology of Crisis: A Guide to Decision-Making and Human Limits in Law Enforcement

1. Introduction: The Human Element in High-Stakes Encounters

Decision-making in law enforcement is frequently scrutinized through the lens of legal mandates and constitutional standards. However, as an expert in the field of the investigative principles associated with this type of critical incident, I must emphasize that these encounters are “irreducibly indeterminate.” This means that regardless of policy or law, the outcome of a high-stakes encounter is dictated by the collision of unpredictable human behavior and the mechanical realities of the human brain.

The purpose of this guide is to move beyond the “passionate beliefs” and emotional conductivity that often saturate public discourse. We must instead engage in a “dispassionate review” of the facts. By understanding the cognitive and physiological constraints of the human engine, we can evaluate incidents based on biological reality rather than unrealistic ideals of human performance. While law enforcement operates under the authority of the state, it is executed by biological organisms subject to significant performance limits.

The transition from a calm environment to a life-threat encounter triggers a mechanical shift in how the brain processes events, often rendering witness accounts and video evidence seemingly at odds with the officer’s experienced reality.

2. The Cognitive Engine: Understanding the OODA Loop

In rapid-response environments, we utilize the OODA Loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) to framework how the brain cycles through information. However, the critical “So What?” for the student is not just the cycle itself, but the inherent “reaction lag.”

Expert vs. Novice Reasoning

As a curriculum specialist, I focus on the “Adaptive Flexibility” shown by experts compared to the rigid, linear thinking of recruits:

• Intuitive Reasoning (The Recruit’s Trap): Recruits often suffer from cognitive impairment, considering only a single option and reporting a higher frequency of perceptual distortions. They focus almost exclusively on “control.”
• Adaptive Flexibility (The Expert’s Edge): Experienced officers utilize the “Quiet Eye” technique—maintaining a longer, stable gaze on a target to increase accuracy and decrease errors. Their focus shifts to:
  • Force Mitigation: Actively seeking de-escalation avenues.
  • Back-up Opportunities: Evaluating the global scene for safety margins.
  • Global Awareness: Seeing the event as a holistic encounter rather than a sequence of isolated threats.

While the OODA loop defines the process, biology dictates the quality of its execution, often overriding intent through involuntary physiological shifts.

3. Physiological Barriers: When Biology Overrides Intent

In crisis, the sympathetic nervous system initiates a biological “hijack.” These are not lapses in judgment; they are autonomic certainties.

• Tunnel Vision: Under high arousal, the brain narrows focus to roughly 100 bits of information out of 10 million. An officer may focus so intently on a suspect’s waistband that they are biologically incapable of seeing a weapon dropped or a bystander entering the frame.
• Ego Depletion: Self-regulation is a finite resource. When an officer’s cognitive reserves are exhausted by long shifts or repeated stressors, they suffer from “ego depletion.” Depleted officers show less patience and resort to force more rapidly when faced with provocative resistance.
• Perceptual Distortions: These affect 90% of officers in lethal encounters. They include time dilation (slow motion/time fleeting) and auditory exclusion (diminished sound).
• Confabulation: Because the brain captures data for survival rather than recall, an officer’s memory may fill in “gaps” filtered by tunnel vision. When an officer’s statement differs from a video, they are often not lying; their brain is confabulating—reconstructing a narrative based on incomplete data.

Physiological Performance List

• Parasympathetic Activation: Training to moderate heart rate can significantly reduce lethal shooting errors, with effects lasting up to 18 months.
• Cortisol & Threat Detection: High cortisol levels (stress) can actually improve “shoot/don’t shoot” accuracy. Data shows this facilitates better identification of armed targets, particularly in scenarios involving Black suspects.
• Working Memory & Negative Emotionality: Higher working memory capacity reduces “false alarm” errors. Counter-intuitively, officers with high negative emotionality combined with high working memory make fewer mistakes in high-pressure shooting tasks.

These internal biological states create a disconnect between the officer’s “Moment-by-Moment” experience and the “Global Event” seen on video. (Mind-set)

4. The Trap of False Narratives and Emotional Conductivity

“Emotional Conductivity” refers to the viral spread of outrage that anchors beliefs before facts emerge. Once an anchor is set, confirmation bias ensures that only evidence supporting the “passionate belief” is acknowledged.

Bias Identification Guide

• Hindsight Bias: Judging an officer’s split-second decision based on information they could not have known at the time (e.g., “The gun was a toy”).
• Confirmation Bias: Seeking data that supports a pre-existing narrative while discarding contradictory forensic evidence.
• Anchoring Bias: Clinging to the first 10-second clip seen on social media as the “truth.”
• Logical Leaps: The most dangerous investigative trap, where suppositions masquerade as facts (e.g., assuming a hand movement was “premeditated” rather than a reactive flinch).

The investigator’s hardest task is “killing self-approval”—the active effort to disprove one’s own anchored beliefs. These biases are often weaponized by a failure in video literacy.

5. Video Literacy: Why “Seeing” Isn’t Always “Believing”

Video is not “reality”; it is a 2D, encoded approximation of a 3D event.

1. 2D Limitations: Cameras lack depth and true speed. A suspect reaching away from an officer can appear to be reaching toward them depending on the lens angle.
2. GOP (Group of Pictures) Structure: Most security/body cameras use compression that discards redundant data. You are not seeing “10 brand new images”; you are seeing encoded information.
3. The Illusion of Intent: At low frame rates (e.g., 8 fps), intermediate movements are “missing.” This creates jerky motion that can make a hand appear to move toward a waistband instantaneously, creating an “illusion of intent” that never existed in real-time.

Global Event vs. Moment-by-Moment: The viewer can pause and rewind. The officer operates in a continuous “Moment-by-Moment” stream where a second of video represents a lifetime of cognitive processing.

6. Objective Analysis: The “Common Thread” and Departmental Standards

To maintain objectivity, we utilize the “Common Thread” framework, which anchors the review in the officer’s perspective and the tangible realities of the scene.

The Common Thread Framework

• Perceptions: What did the officer see? Suspect resistance and behavior is the #1 predictor of force. This “Perception” thread is triggered by the suspect’s actions.
• Context: Social disorganization and neighborhood crime rates directly influence the officer’s baseline threat assessment.
• Expectations: How did the environment and suspect behavior shape what the officer believed was about to happen?
• Decisions/Actions: Were the choices reasonable based on the perception/context?
• Performance/Behavior: Assessment of tactical execution and post-incident conduct.

The Primacy of Tangible Benchmarks

There is a dangerous “Myth of National Standards.” Binding standards are found only within individual departments.

Legal Context & Monell Doctrine: To defeat claims under Monell or 34 U.S.C. § 12601, departments must provide documentation. If an officer deviates from policy, the investigation must determine if the policy failed the officer or if training was inadequate. Documentation of lesson plans and certification is the only way to disprove “deliberate indifference.”

Our mantra is: “Educate and Explain vs. Excuse and Advocate.” We do not excuse bad behavior; we explain the human factors that clarify whether an action was a reasonable deviation or an indefensible breach.

7. Conclusion: From Passionate Belief to Evidence-Based Understanding

True accountability requires “Video Literacy” and a deep understanding of “Human Factors.” We must prioritize thorough, evidence-based investigation over the viral spread of emotional conductivity.

By anchoring our reviews in departmental standards, cognitive limits, and the “Common Thread” of suspect and officer behavior, we ensure that the “good” is recognized, the “bad” is addressed, and the “ugly” is exposed without prejudice. The priority must always be to identify where training or policy may have failed the human at the center of the crisis.

Video Literacy: Why “Seeing” Isn’t Always “Believing” in Use-of-Force Investigations

1. Introduction: The Paradigm Shift from “Truth” to “Approximation”

For the professional investigator, the first mandate of objectivity is the development of Video Literacy. You must move past the amateur assumption that video is a transparent window into reality. In forensic terms, video is a 2D, encoded approximation of a 3D event—not an infallible record of truth. It is a data stream that has been filtered, compressed, and stripped of critical environmental cues.

Ignorance of these technical limits is not a minor oversight; it is an investigative failure that invites “emotional conductivity.” This occurs when a viral, partial clip triggers a visceral reaction, anchoring the viewer’s belief before the forensic facts are established. Once this passionate belief takes root, the investigator’s ability to conduct a dispassionate review is compromised. Your objective is to “kill self-approval”—to actively seek evidence that refutes your initial anchored beliefs.

Understanding the narrative requires a forensic autopsy of the “digital skeleton” that constitutes every video file.

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2. The Technical Frailties: The “Digital Skeleton” of Video Evidence

Digital video is created by algorithms designed to prioritize storage efficiency over detail. These “frailties” create deceptive visual artifacts that can lead to flawed conclusions.

Key Concept: The Illusion of Intent The missing data in low-frame-rate video creates a false narrative of aggression:

• Missing Intermediate Frames: Without the transition frames of a movement, a hand appearing to move toward a waistband looks instantaneous.
• Jerky Motion: Fluid, reactive flinches are rendered as sharp, purposeful lunges.
• False Malice: These technical artifacts combine to make a biological “startle response” look like a premeditated, aggressive choice.

Digital encoding is only half the problem; we must also account for the biological encoding of the human officer.

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3. The Human Engine: Cognitive Performance Under Extreme Stress

In high-arousal encounters, the officer is a biological organism governed by mechanical certainties of the brain, not a dispassionate camera.

Physiological Barriers

• Tunnel Vision: Under threat, the brain narrows focus to as few as 100 bits of information out of the 10 million available. An officer may be biologically incapable of seeing a weapon dropped if their focus is tunneled on the suspect’s hands.
• Perceptual Distortions: Approximately 90% of officers experience time dilation (slow motion) or auditory exclusion. The officer is not “ignoring” commands; their brain has physically muted them to focus on survival.
• Ego Depletion: Self-regulation is a finite resource. When cognitive reserves are exhausted by long shifts or repeated stressors, officers show less patience and may resort to force more rapidly.

The “Quiet Eye” and Cognitive Ability Investigative leads must differentiate between novices and experts. Experienced officers utilize “Quiet Eye”—maintaining a longer, stable gaze on a target to increase accuracy and force mitigation. Furthermore, research indicates that officers with high working memory combined with high negative emotionality (stress) actually make fewer mistakes, debunking the myth that “emotional” officers are always more prone to error.

The OODA Loop & Reaction Lag | OODA Stage | Biological Reality | | :— | :— | | Observe | Intake of raw sensory data; requires filtering 10 million bits/sec. | | Orient | Data is filtered through training and the “Quiet Eye” of the expert. | | Decide | Selecting a schema. Decisions occur in 0.2 to 0.5 seconds. | | Act | The Lag: Because the amygdala can trigger a “neurological hijack,” actions often occur before the conscious mind is fully aware. By the time the trigger is pulled, the video data has already changed. |

These biological constraints create a profound gap between the video’s “Global Event” and the officer’s “Moment-by-Moment” reality.

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4. The Collision: Where Video Narratives Clash with Forensic Reality

The most dangerous investigative trap is treating the Global Event (the rewindable video) as the same reality as the Moment-by-Moment experience.

• The Illusion of Deliberation: Media enhancements like slow-motion replays are forensic poison. By stretching a split-second event, such as the 1-second SUV surge in the Good case, into several seconds, they suggest the officer had time for a “calculated choice” that did not exist in real-time.
• Memory & Confabulation: When an officer’s statement differs from the video, do not immediately assume an “intentional lie.” This is often Confabulation. The brain captures data for survival, not for a court record; it later “fills in” gaps filtered by tunnel vision with what it assumes happened.

To bridge these conflicting realities, the investigation must be anchored in a structured forensic framework.

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5. Reconciling the Evidence: The Common Thread Framework

The “Common Thread” Theory is the essential tool for objective analysis. It allows you to determine if a policy deviation was an acceptable deviation based on perception or an indefensible breach of standards.

1. Perceptions: What did the officer perceive as the primary trigger? Suspect behavior (resistance/aggression) is the #1 predictor of force.
2. Context: What environmental factors (e.g., icy roads, high-crime area) shaped the threat assessment?
3. Expectations: How did the suspect’s non-compliance shape what the officer believed was about to happen?
4. Decisions/Actions: Were the choices reasonable based only on the officer’s perceptions and context at the time?
5. Performance/Behavior: A clinical assessment of tactical execution and post-incident conduct.

The Myth of National Standards There are no legally binding “national standards” or “best practices.” A credible investigation must anchor its review in the Departmental Standards and Training Curricula specifically provided to that officer. Referencing vague external ideals is an investigative error. Legally, this anchoring is the only way to defeat Monell claims or 34 U.S.C. § 12601 investigations, as it disproves “deliberate indifference” by showing the officer acted according to documented departmental mandates.

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6. Summary for the Beginner Investigator: “Educate and Explain vs. Excuse and Advocate”

Your mission is not to defend or condemn, but to move from passionate belief to evidence-based understanding.

The Investigator’s Checklist:

• [ ] Identify Technical Frailties: Document low frame rates, 2D depth distortions, and GOP compression artifacts.
• [ ] Account for Biological Reality: Factor in the OODA loop lag, the amygdala’s role in reaction, and the “Quiet Eye” of expertise.
• [ ] Anchor in Policy: Only judge the officer against their specific training and departmental mandates.

Final Synthesis The goal of use-of-force analysis is clarity. We follow the mantra: “Educate and Explain vs. Excuse and Advocate.” We do not excuse bad behavior; we explain the technical and human factors that clarify whether an action was a reasonable response to a perceived threat or an indefensible breach of professional standards.

Investigative Protocol: Objective Hindsight Review & Human Factors Analysis

1. Foundational Protocol Mandate and the Objective Review Standard

Investigators are professionally obligated to transition from “emotional conductivity”—the viral spread of public outrage that anchors beliefs before facts emerge—to a dispassionate, evidence-based review. In high-profile incidents, such as the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by ICE Agent Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis, emotional conductivity often creates false narratives that bypass biological and technical realities. This protocol protects departmental integrity by providing the empirical tools to distinguish between “honest mistakes”—acceptable performance deviations under extreme physiological stress—and “indefensible breaches” of professional standards. By stripping away the bias of hindsight, we evaluate the human at the center of the crisis as a biological organism rather than an unrealistic ideal.

Core Mission: The mandate of this protocol is to Educate and Explain vs. Excuse and Advocate. We clarify actions through the prism of human factors and professional standards; we do not provide cover for misconduct, nor do we join the chorus of uninformed condemnation.

Investigative Anchors: To maintain absolute objectivity and “kill self-approval,” all reviews must be secured by three primary anchors:

• Actual Officer Perceptions: Identifying what the officer specifically saw, heard, and felt (e.g., Agent Ross’s perception of a vehicle surge vs. a 2D camera’s global view).
• Environmental Context: Factoring in situational variables like lighting, weather (e.g., the icy conditions in the Good case), and neighborhood sociological markers.
• Documented Departmental Standards: Anchoring the review in specific policies and training curricula the officer was mandated to follow.

Achieving this objectivity requires a structured framework to navigate the inherent complexities of human performance and the physiological shifts that occur during life-threat encounters.

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2. The Common Thread Framework: Anchoring the Narrative

The “Common Thread” theory serves as the central anchoring device for this protocol. Its strategic importance lies in preventing “logical leaps”—instances where suppositions or hindsight-biased opinions masquerade as facts. By reconstructing an event through the officer’s experienced reality, we prevent the “global view” of video from overshadowing the “moment-by-moment” reality of the encounter.

The Five Pillars of the Common Thread

1. Perceptions
   • Investigative Objective: Identify what the officer saw and heard. Suspect behavior is the primary trigger. In 75% of cases, research shows a direct correspondence between resistance and response, quantifiable via Force Factor Coding (maintaining a -1 to +1 ratio between suspect resistance and officer force).
2. Context
   • Investigative Objective: Analyze environmental factors. This includes sociological markers of the “task environment” such as social disorganization, high tensity protests, potential unrest, political divides, etc. which can shape an officer’s baseline threat assessment.
3. Expectations
   • Investigative Objective: Determine how the context and suspect behavior (e.g., non-compliance, sudden movements) shaped the officer’s belief of what would happen next.
4. Decisions/Actions
   • Investigative Objective: Evaluate if choices were based on a reasonable belief supported by the evidence based on the officer’s specific perceptions and context at the time.
5. Performance/Behavior
   • Investigative Objective: Assess tactical execution and post-incident conduct against documented departmental benchmarks. This is where emotional conductivity can take hold, especially in divided environments.

Applied Analysis (Good/Ross Case): An objective review of the Minneapolis shooting must focus on Renee Good’s non-compliance (suspect behavior) and the sudden movement of the SUV on icy ground as the primary triggers for Agent Ross’s expectations and subsequent tactical response.

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3. Human Factors: The Biological Reality of High-Stakes Decision-Making

Investigating officers as “biological organisms” is essential for a fair review. Stress triggers autonomic certainties that override intent, rendering standard witness accounts seemingly at odds with recorded data.

The OODA Loop and Reaction Lag

The OODA Loop describes the decision-making cycle. Investigators must account for a reaction lag of 0.2 to 0.5 seconds.

Biological Hijack and Psychological Nuance

• Tunnel Vision: Under high arousal, focus narrows to roughly 100 bits of data. An officer may be biologically incapable of seeing a weapon dropped if their focus is tunneled on the suspect’s hands.
• Perceptual Distortions: Affecting up to 90% of officers, these include time dilation and auditory exclusion.
• The Kleider Paradox (2010): While high stress (Cortisol) can actually improve threat detection accuracy, the interaction between working memory and negative emotionality is critical. Officers with high negative emotionality combined with high working memory capacity can actually make fewer “false alarm” errors in high-pressure tasks.
• Ego Depletion: Cognitive reserves are finite. When depleted by long shifts, continued criminal behavior, etc. officers can show less patience and react more coercively to resistance.

Expert vs. Novice Reasoning: Experts utilize Adaptive Flexibility and the “Quiet Eye” (stable gaze) focused on the most salient components – to focus on force mitigation and global awareness. Novices fall into the “Recruit’s Trap,” focusing rigidly on “control.”

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4. Video Literacy: Deconstructing the Technical Approximation of Reality

Investigators must challenge the “fallacy of the infallible camera.” Video literacy is a strategic necessity to prevent the illusion of deliberation created by the luxury of pause and rewind.

Technical Frailties of Video Evidence

• Encoding & Compression: GOP (Group of Pictures) structures discard “redundant” data. This results in ejected information where split-second impacts are lost.
• 2D Limitations: The loss of depth distorts speed and positioning. In the Good case, a 2D lens may miss the 3D reality of a vehicle’s wheel turn or the proximity of an officer to a moving bumper.
• Frame Rate Impact: At a low frame rate (e.g., 8 fps), a single frame represents 0.125 seconds. A 0.5-second reaction lag covers only 4 frames of video. The “Observe” data can change entirely between two “blinks” of the camera, yet the jerky 8 fps motion creates a false “illusion of intent.”

The use of slow-motion video as the primary analytical tool is EXPLICITLY FORBIDDEN. Slow-motion creates a false narrative of ample deliberation time that did not exist in the officer’s “moment-by-moment” reality. It weaponizes hindsight to judge a split-second event as a calculated choice.

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5. Evaluation Benchmarks: The Primacy of Departmental Standards

There is no such thing as “National Standards.” Organizations like the IACP provide recommendations, but they are not legally binding mandates. Investigative credibility depends on anchoring the review in tangible, documented departmental benchmarks.

Subjective Ideals vs. Tangible Benchmarks

Defeating Monell and Section 12601 Claims

To defeat claims under the Monell Doctrine or 34 U.S.C. § 12601 (formerly Section 14141), the investigation must determine if the policy failed the officer or if the officer breached the policy.

• Reasonable Deviation: A departure from standard protocol justified by the situational context and biological limits.
• Indefensible Breach: An action with no reasonable basis in training, policy, or context.

Applied Analysis (Good/Ross Case): If Agent Ross’s mandated ICE training prioritized rapid response to vehicle threats over de-escalation in high-stakes enforcement, he cannot be objectively faulted for failing to use de-escalation techniques that were not part of his required protocol. Documentation is the linchpin of this defense.

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6. Conclusion: Achieving Truth and Accountability

This protocol provides the framework to clarify an officer’s actions through evidence rather than the emotional conductivity of public pressure. By focusing on human factors, video literacy, and documented benchmarks, we navigate the “good, the bad, and the ugly” of critical incidents.

A vital component of this process is the investigator’s commitment to “killing self-approval”—the active, disciplined effort to disprove one’s own anchored beliefs. We must aggressively seek out evidence that refutes initial impressions to ensure a result that is both fair and scientifically sound.

Final Directive: Investigators must ultimately identify where training or policy failed the human at the center of the crisis. Identifying these systemic failures is the only way to prevent future tragedies and maintain the moral compass of the profession.