When Does An Eye Witness Account Count? One Man's Opinion

Thursday, August 23, 2007 03:45 AM

The Vancouver Police Department took the airways this past week to give the people of the lower mainland hell for not coming forward to give them an eye witness account of what took place in the policeshooting of a Vancouver man.

Accounts being given to the media suggest that upwards of six shots were fired into the guy after he went after a police officer with a chain.

Some of the accounts suggest that he was fleeing the scene when he was gunned down.

Now the police said they can’t do their job effectively unless they have people come forward to given them an account of what took place.

Now you may remember, (if not I will refresh your memory) when we were told earlier this year that an eye witness account of the shooting of Kevin St Arnaud in Vanderhoof in which it was suggested that an eye witness account carries little credibility, even though in this instance, the person who witnessed the officer firing three shots into Arnauds chest happened to be a fellow RCMP officer.

The police in their investigation chose to take the account of the officer who pulled the trigger over that of his fellow officer’s eye witness account.

You couldn’t help but wonder if the reason that the residents of Vancouver have not been coming forward to tell police about what they saw is because they have heard what took place up north. If they will not be given any credibility, why bother?

I’m Meisner and that’s one man’s opinion.

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Posted on Thursday, August 23, 2007 03:45 AM in Views by Ben Meisner

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Comments

Posted by: Andyfreeze on August 23 2007 9:08 AM

The Kevin St.Arnaud shooting is a classic example of discounting a witnesses testimony.
I believe there was actually 2 witness in this shooting.One was the other cop, and one was a guy passing by or stopped nearby?(he was interviewed on the news)
We also heard the spokesperson for the RCMP at the Bush inquirey state that what people see is not always accurate, or something to that effect.
I firmly believe the RCMP will pick and choose what info they will use and who they will call as witnesses according to the outcome they are try to achieve.
I am also concerned that the outrage over the outcome of both these cases is dying down and fading away.
There are still far to many unanswered questions that need to be dealt with to allow this to happen.
It just shows us how little control over our lives that we really have.

Posted by: heidi1555 on August 23 2007 9:47 AM

I also saw the vancouver shooting on the news. Andy don't worry in Sept. down in Vancouver this issue will be raised again....patiently waiting. I'm not able to go as i'd need to get divorced first but I know I can read all about it on this site! You know right from wrong, I know right from wrong....too bad they don't. When I say "they" I mean ONLY the ones crookedly involved. This issue will never die down because unless they take this seriously and act upon changing it it will keep happening over and over. It's up to us who have a deep passion about it to keep talking about it as the family involved in the next shooting may not have it in them at the time to voice it. It's very heart wrenching.

Posted by: billposer on August 23 2007 1:09 PM

The other thing that is strange about the St. Arnaud shooting is that, if my memory serves correctly, the ballistics expert's testimony regarding the trajectory of the shots supported that of the second RCMP officer and was inconsistent with that of the officer who shot. So this is not just a case of discounting an eyewitness.

It is true that there are a lot of problems with eyewitness testimony, as shown by psychologists such as Elizabeth Loftus. Those issues don't really arise in this case though. For example, people are often mistaken when identifying someone they don't know and have seen only briefly in a moment of stress, but there is no question here of one RCMP officer misidentifying her partner.

Posted by: heidi1555 on August 23 2007 7:00 PM

Yes, billposer very true we cannot forget the forensics in all of this! The teeth that keeps this case going along with the eyewitnesses! All of the eyewitnesses recollect the same thing so it must be true, real facts as the forensics support their recollections and more importantly the word of Constable Colleen Erickson supports the witnesses statements as well.
Witnesses + forensics + Constable Erickson = the truth, justice, common sense!! Add a few tainted, dishonest, warped sense of serve and protect, corrupt members into the equation and you get disaster working our streets as your answer.