Are Memories of Use-of-Force Incidents Altered When Police Officers View Their Body-Worn Camera Footage?

Abstract

For evaluations of police conduct, the Supreme Court of the United States ruling in Graham v. Connor (1989) sets the standard for deciding if an officer’s use of force was reasonable and justified. The “reasonableness” criterion, according to this ruling, must be “judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight.” How should “the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene” be evaluated? The results of research indicate that viewing their body-worn camera (BWC) footage of a use-of-force incident can alter officers’ memory for what occurred during the incident, and so their perception of the event after viewing the video may be different from their actual perception “on the scene”. If an officer’s event memory is to be used to determine whether their use of force was justified, then it is important to ensure that these memories are not altered by viewing their BWC footage, which we now know can be a powerful source of post-event suggestion.