Journalists and Eyewitness Witnesses

[cst.sb]

I have two questions for you all. I just received a PM from "nodonut". It seems he was upset that I discounted eyewitnesses testimony in regards to the male shot by police in London.

#1. How do you all feel about eyewitness testimony? I won't tell you my thoughts because I don't want to "set" the stage.

#2. For those of you who've had exeriences or had "inside" information on an incident or investigation that was being reported on by the media, how accurate do you believe the reporting was?

[Ballen0351]

Eye witnesses see things the way they want to see them. You will never get two people to see the same thing and have the same story about what they saw. Alot depends on there life History. For instance If someone hates cops and always have hated them all there life and they see a suspect resist a cop they will say the cop started the fight. You have to consider everything not just the witness. And thats really true in a high profile case you get people that clam to be witness to something that are later proven to have not seen anything at all just wanted to be on TV

[Tennsix]

Eye witnesses see things the way they want to see them. You will never get two people to see the same thing and have the same story about what they saw. Alot depends on there life History. For instance If someone hates cops and always have hated them all there life and they see a suspect resist a cop they will say the cop started the fight. You have to consider everything not just the witness. And thats really true in a high profile case you get people that clam to be witness to something that are later proven to have not seen anything at all just wanted to be on TV

Yep, you hit the nail on the head.