Video cameras and Body cams are everywhere now. They’re supposed to give us a clear picture of what happens during police encounters. And sometimes, they do. But what if that picture isn’t so clear? What if the video is actually tricking you?

That’s what we’re going to talk about. Video is very, very helpful in a lot of cases but when video evidence is not understood, it can be disastrous. The reason why is not because of the video, it’s because of how we interpret that video. This article will break down the basics of how to look at video properly and how to navigate biases to stay objective in investigations, especially where video is present.

The problem is video presents itself in a conclusive manner. When we look at video, we come to an understanding of the event, we have an opinion of the event. Then we look at the video and make assumptions, and say, ah, this is what happened. This is dangerous, and what can affect our investigation is emotional conductivity that is happening when we watch the video evidence, hindsight bias, and hindsight attribution.

Video Can Lie (Sort Of)

Think of a video like any other witness. A good witness can be a huge help in investigating a case, but what if the witness is biased, has a bad memory, or only saw part of what happened? (Artwohl A. , 2018) You wouldn’t take everything they say as gospel, right? You’d ask questions and try to get the whole story, compare those statements to other evidence and other statements to find the common thread (Borden, 2024) in the incident. (Anatomy of a Critical Incident)

It’s the same with video, a video presents itself in a conclusive manner. When we look at video, we have an understanding of the event, we have an opinion of the event, then we look at the video and say, ah, this is what happened; This is dangerous. Video gives you one view of events, but it is very rare that a video tells a complete story. (Borden, 2024) (Eugene M. Carusoa, 2016)

What can really trap you is relying on how we interpret events. Think of hindsight bias. The knowledge of the outcome can lead us to create a version of events that is more objective or more subjective. That depends on the person. It is hard to remove ourselves and really dissect what the video is displaying.

With video, there’s a lot you don’t know. Video presents itself as, “here’s the story and it’s complete.” That’s the risk we fall into as investigators.

The “Ah-Ha” Moment That Can Cost You

The main trap is when you look at a video and have that “ah-ha” moment. You think you see exactly what happened, and you’re confident you’ve got the case nailed. But that confidence can blind you to other possibilities.

Investigators fell victim to all of these things wrapped up in one and made some conclusions on that video, however, it was the video that got the person acquitted of all charges in the trial. So, the video from the prosecution side was the foundational evidence that substantiated a murder charge in the mind of the prosecutor. Well, it was the video itself, the same video the prosecution used as their foundational evidence that got the person acquitted, because it (the video evidence) was presented from an analytical standpoint with an explanation of the video, what it shows and why.

Here’s why, video presents itself in a conclusive manner. When we look at video, we have what we believe is understanding of the event, and we have an opinion of the event based on our own experiences and huristics. Then we look at the video and say, ah, this is what happened. This mindset is dangerous, and what can cause this affect in the investigation is; emotional conductivity based on what the video presents, hindsight bias, and then, hindsight attribution.

Video can present you with your own story, the story you “believe happened.” Here’s the beginning, middle, and end, presented in video form. It’s easy to fall victim to this story when presented in this manner, and that’s one of the biggest risks you fall into as an investigator. Remember, video is a piece of evidence, not a complete story.

Hindsight is “Not” 20/20

You’ve probably heard the saying, “Hindsight is 20/20.” It means that it’s easy to see things clearly “after” they’ve already happened. The challenge is to review incidents, especially with video, and be fair about our perception of the situation.  It’s easy to find failure when we can point to moments prior to the event that we believe were causal to the outcome.  Remember, the officers involved don’t have a crystal ball to accurately predict the future, or the behavior of the suspect, or the success of the chosen tactic.  

We need to be ultra clear that you can’t just watch a video and come up with this conclusion. And it’s been said many times, “you know, I don’t need an expert to tell me what I see on video.” And there couldn’t be anything further from the case. You can’t always trust what you are seeing.

That’s a problem when you’re investigating a case. You already “know” what happened. You know who the “bad guy” is, you know the outcome, and that can completely change how you see the video. You might think you see clues that you wouldn’t have noticed if you didn’t already know the ending.

It’s like watching a movie you’ve seen a hundred times. You pick up on little details that you missed the first time around because you already know what’s going to happen. So the second and third time you watch the movie you pick up on small details that tie into the outcome – They may be ultra clear on the second viewing but you missed it the first time you saw the movie; this is no different in the review of the video evidence.

The Danger of “I Don’t Need an Expert”

The biggest red flag is when someone says, “I don’t need an expert to tell me what I see on video.” It is essential to have a video examiner on prolific cases. When you hear those words, you need to absolutely plant your feet and screen that statement. Video is not always what you see with your eyes.

Sometimes those doing the review have no idea about the encoding process in video and what treacherous limitations video puts on the table for evidence as a presentation for the outcome of this event. We’ll say it again and agin…You don’t always know what you are looking at.

What You Don’t Know About Video

The truth is, video is way more complicated than most people think. And there’s a number of things, and I’m not going to get into the inner workings of this right now, understanding the complexities are more for the class, but just a surface look at frame rates, one of the most important aspects of video review. We all know that frame rates can be variable. But what people don’t understand is the amount of information that’s missing from a scene based on this theory. Just know that there are technical aspects of a video. The capture of a video is complex and includes frame rates and processes to present a view. These aspects and the process can dramatically change the events you’re viewing on video.

Here are a few of the things that can mess with a video:

• Frame Rate: This is how many pictures (frames) are recorded per second. The higher the frame rate, the smoother the video. But if the frame rate is low, you’re going to miss details.
• Encoding: This is how the video is compressed to make it smaller. Sometimes, encoding can remove information or create artifacts (weird visual distortions).
• Variable Frame Rates: Now, on this last case that I was on, the video evidence was presented at 30 frames per second. Well, the video evidence was captured at eight frames per second and then transcoded into what was called best evidence at 30 frames per second, right? The challenge is that video presents conflicting components, and those components can hurt you in the investigation.

As an analogy, think of it like this: Imagine you’re watching a flip book with 10 pages, and one with 90 pages – on the book with ten pages the first page is the same and the last page is the same. When you watch the ten page flip book you get the idea of the movement presented, when you watch the same flip book with 90 pages you get the full array of movement. You get the basic idea of what’s happening with the 10 page version, but you’re missing a lot of the action. That’s what it’s like watching a video with a low frame rate.

An Example: The Bar Parking Lot Case

Here’s a real-world example: In that particular case we spoke of earlier, it was a civilian case in a bar parking lot. The video was being filmed at eight frames per second as was discovered in the meta-analysis of the video evidence.

In the video, it appears that the suspect, the attacker, stops and raises his hands, puts his hands up, and then is shot and killed. And when you look at the video the first time, the second time, the third time, this is what it looks like until you start analyzing what’s missing from the video. In retrospect and looking at all of the things that weren’t seen in the video, that aren’t available to be seen unless you know they could exist, the actions and behavior of the suspect and the victim are deceiving in the video.  When compared to all other evidence, including witness statements, the video actually shows that the victim was defending himself from the attacker.

My point with this article is to create awareness in video review.  Understand that video is not foundational as evidence. It is a piece of evidence, just like a statement, just like a fingerprint, a boot print, a measurement, a vehicle description, whatever it might be. It’s all a piece of the evidence. And you cannot give video any more verity or any more weight than any other piece of evidence. Only after it has been analyzed and “figured out” can you rely on it for anything.

Based on the statements that were gathered at the scene, investigators made the determination that this was a murder, just by looking at the video, “It’s a trap!”

But when a closer look in the form of analysis, we realized something critical: The missing frames meant that the subject was responding to being shot by raising his hands. It was an apparent visceral response to being struck with a round. This sequence of events happened exactly opposite, as discovered in the analysis of the video, than it did in real time. The assumed timeline was wrong, what appeared to happen first, happened second, and what appeared to happened second, happened first.

Video is the Crackhead on the Corner (no offense)

Video cannot be more weighted than any other piece of evidence. It is no more of an important piece of evidence than a fingerprint or a boot print, although it is a necessary piece of evidence. Video is the crackhead on the corner, if that makes sense. We cannot take any video at face value. There’s a lot of understanding that has to go into what we’re looking at.

When a tweaker on the corner saw everything and gives you this long statement that about “whatever” and we take it at face value because it had a couple of sentences that said something that matched what we believed happened, that’s when we need to take a step back. We’re going to interrogate that statement. And we’re going to take that statement and give it the weight that it requires in the investigation. Video is no different.

There’s a lot of understanding that has to go into what we’re looking at. And a lot of that from a law enforcement perspective is knowing what we’re looking for. We know once we know what we’re looking at, which is what’s missing with most investigations. It’s just the nature of not knowing what you don’t know about video. It’s not magic, But there are some very important mechanical aspects of video that you have to understand that will transform video into a usable piece of evidence, a verifiable piece of reliable evidence, wouldn’t you aggree?

It needs the weight as evidence, but it takes work. Video isn’t the main foundational evidence, It has to be worked with to become reliable, like anything else that we find to be reliable or unreliable.

Perception vs. Reality

This is some of the stuff that we cover in the force analysis video review and examination course, is that you as an expert in defensive tactics or firearms training or whatever your functionality is and your expertise that you’ve developed through your career, you know what you’re looking for in the video. The problem is you don’t know what you’re looking at, which can affect our perception of what we’re looking for.

With that in mind, in this particular case, the subject is attacked by a patron from the bar where there are two cars parked, He walks between the cars. He steps back. The guy continues to move forward toward the victim. The victim draws a weapon and fires one round to stop the attacker.

It’s very important to analyze this, in the end, that final frame theory got through to the jury. The jury fully understood. The juries aren’t stupid, juries understand that there’s technical components to this, especially when it’s laid out from a depth of knowledge and simply explained.

So, in explaining this and explaining how fast that frame is happening and comparing it to the blink of an eye. My follow up answer to that was “that’s a final frame theory.” That’s not how this event should be analyzed and not how I analyzed it. There’s missing information. This is the result of the shot being fired, evidenced by X, Y and Z in the previous frame.

Understanding the Technology

There are some mechanical aspects of video that you have to understand that will transform video into a usable piece of evidence, and video has to be reliable. Like anything else that is reliable or unreliable, it needs to be weighted and measured equally. But as we’ve said that takes work, and understanding the technology.

It’s also extremely important to understand that time frame limitations apply strictly with no exceptions when it comes to video review and examination. So, when we’re looking at increments of time on video and developing a timeline sequence inside of that 232 milliseconds, things are happening that we associate with what we know of the outcome. Once we are in the know about the video, this becomes an effective way to analyze the timing components.

This conversation between Danny and Jamie ties the last two conversations that they’ve had about emotional conductivity, (Borden-King, 2024) somebody being murdered, the hindsight attribution, the act of firing a weapon at an individual, and the outcome, the subject died. And all of those things now compound themselves and they create a hurdle that has to be navigated through experience and  expertise in this field.

One of the points of contention on the stand in the above example case was that the attorney who was prosecuting the case stopped the video at a point where we knew shots were fired, however, the shots were not readily visible, And he said, “do you see the subject moving backwards right now?” “Yes, I do.” “So you’re saying that he’s no longer charging the person who has the weapon.” I said, “not in that frame. But that is the final frame theory that I’ve explained. That’s not the way that the subject is making decisions and not the way perceptions of the incident were articulated.” (These quotes are paraphrased).

Here are the points in the case to understand about the video issues:

• There’s a lot of missing information
• What you’re seeing is a freeze frame where the display of the information from the frame before is still present on the screen
• The shot is fired in between those intervals and the suspect is moving back from the shot being fired after the shot was fired. (Other considerations factored in are the times associated with the decision-making process; more on that in the time to start and stop blog. (Borden-King, 2024)(Green, http://www.visualexpert.com/Resources/reactiontime.html, 2021)

The Video Review Checklist

Here’s a quick checklist to keep in mind when reviewing video evidence:

• Know the technology. Understand frame rates, encoding, and other technical aspects.
• Don’t assume – Don’t just assume you know what happened based on the visual representation of the incident.
• Compare the video to other evidence, like witness statements and physical evidence.
• Get expert help. If you’re not sure, bring in someone who knows video inside and out.

These things are very important to understand, very important to navigate. These blogs that me and Danny have done over the last couple of moths are very important. And they’re a sliver of the information that’s available to you in training.

A Team Effort

To truly understand the magnitude of this process, as an investigator, You have to know those things. So, a detective that’s using video for their case has to truly understand what they’re looking at.

Look, reviewing video shouldn’t be a one-person show, It takes a team, this provides checks and balances that are very important. The investigator gathers the evidence, the video expert analyzes it, and the prosecutor presents it in court, everyone needs to be on the same page and understand the limitations of video, just by looking at it repeatedly isn’t going to change things.

Errors and Oversights

The errors in those cases discussed were staggering, and every error that we’ve talked about was present in that case. Number one, people used the benefit of hindsight and applied it to this case. Everything that you can imagine in terms of hindsight was applied to this case.

I just worked a case out of the Midwest doing a video analysis. In this case I completely missed one of the shots fired. I got the case very late and I had 24 hours to get this case done and wrapped up as far as a surface video review and analysis. I woke up the next morning and I’m going through the case and I’m starting to compare evidence and I realized that I had missed a shot fired. This is not an uncommon occurance, the process is to have checks and balances in place to keep things on an objective track

In those cases, they would involve emotional conductivity and oversight. The need to throw flags on the play, so to speak, to let emotional conductivity guide thought processes to understand the existence of these components and then effectively navigate them and look for all of the nuances. Listen to every word in the statements, read every word in the transcripts, listen to radio traffic, look at measurements.

Supporting Law Enforcement

And that’s what we’re here for. That’s the fight. Make note that this process is not to excuse negligent, criminal or unacceptable behavior, it is to protect the integrity of the profession, not to protect individuals. Ultimately, we are called to objectively analyze the officer on the streets, making split-second decisions. It’s called supporting the foundation, right? The officer’s making decisions on foundational components of police training and with consideration of human limitations and evidence limitations. It may be appropriate, and it may be inappropriate; without an objective review those opinions and conclusions, they can be questionable.

Where to Start

We talk a lot about role, purpose and function; the functionality of the investigation is to gather all of the data. The functionality of the review and analysis is to compare all evidence available. Be objective and don’t develop theories before you have everything the case has to offer. Once we know all of the data, only then can we develop theories to push forward an objective line of sight in the opinions and conclusions.

Here are a few ways you can become more educated about video evidence:

• Take Training Courses: Learn from experts who know the technical aspects of video and how to avoid biases. CIR offers some of these, but it is just as important to continue building on your understanding.
• Read Articles and Books: There are plenty of resources that can help you understand the complexities of video evidence.
• Talk to Experts: Reach out to video analysts and other professionals who work with video evidence regularly.
• Practice: The best way to learn is by doing. Review videos of past incidents and try to identify potential biases and misinterpretations.

The Bottom Line

Video evidence is a powerful tool, but it’s not a magic wand. It’s crucial to understand its limitations and avoid the traps that can lead to inaccurate conclusions. By being aware of these issues and taking steps to educate yourself, you can make sure that video evidence is used fairly and accurately. And those efforts are important for an officers rights and freedoms, to protect he integrity of law-enforcement as a profession, and to fulfill the obligation to remain neutral in the investigative process.

Stay safe and stay engaged!

Authored by Critical Incident Review, L.L.C.

Sgt. Jamie Borden (Ret.)Founder, Critical Incident Reiew / Ofc. Danny King (Ret.) Founder, AmericanPatrolman.com

Works Cited

Artwohl, A. (2018). Perceptual and memory distortion during officer-involved shootings. . FBI L. Enforcement Bull.,, 17.

Borden, j. (. (2024). Anatomy of a critical incident. las vegas: KDP – Amazon.

Borden-King, J. B. (2024, august 16). Uncovering the hidden distortions in body-worn camera footage. Retrieved from Police1.com: https://www.police1.com/officer-safety/uncovering-the-hidden-distortions-in-body-worn-camera-footage

Eugene M. Carusoa, Z. C. (2016, march). Slow motion increases perceived intent. PNAS – Slow motion increases perceived intent.

Green, M. (2021). http://www.visualexpert.com/Resources/reactiontime.html. Retrieved from http://www.visualexpert.com: http://www.visualexpert.com/Resources/reactiontime.html

Green, M. (2024). https://www.visualexpert.com/Resources/reactiontime.html. Retrieved from VisualExpert.com: https://www.visualexpert.com