A Potential Case of Change Blindness in an Officer-Involved Shooting

Abstract

The perceptual phenomenon of change blindness has been widely researched in the scientific literature, mostly in laboratory studies. This case study reviews the fatal shooting of a woman who suddenly backed her car in the general direction of law enforcement officers as other officers were attempting to extract her from the car. The deputy who eventually fired at the woman initially had his TASER drawn; when he perceived the car reversing toward officers, he tried to holster his TASER before drawing and firing his handgun. By the time the deputy fired, the woman had stopped reversing and was driving the car forward (i.e., not toward officers). Even after viewing police in-car-camera video, the deputy was adamant that he perceived the car as still moving backward when he fired. The facts are compared to the characteristics of change blindness and other human factors potentially at play.