On Tue, 13 May 2008 11:40:44 +0100, Zhang DaWei
wrote:
>On Mon, 12 May 2008 12:44:39 +0100, unit743 wrote:
>
>>On Mon, 12 May 2008 01:01:52 +0100, "Cork Soaker"
>> wrote:
>>
>>>: Have the Police really totally given up on Public Relations?
>>>
>>>Were they ever trying?
>>>
>>
>>At one time, yes.
>
>Back in 1981 I was interviewed as a neighbour of an old lady who had
>been murdered. I was shown a picture of the lady and asked "Have you
>ever seen her." To which I accurately replied "I don't remember ever
>seeing her." which prompted the response and the written note, "Oh, so
>you've not seen her." by the officer. The officer was clearly taken
>aback when I replied that what he had interpreted as my response and
>written down was not what I had said. He commented that it was the
>same, and I then pointed out that it was most definitely not the same
>in the following way: suppose I had fleetingly seen her once when I
>was in my backyard, as she was walking down the back lane, and she and
>I had exchanged hellos. Becuase it was such a transient encounter and
>I was quite preoccupied at the time, I didn't remember it. However,
>the exchange was seen by a different person, remembered, because I was
>new to the area, and later reported to the police. The apparent
>discrepancy between the officer's written account of what I had said
>(which was not an accurate account), and what this other person
>reported would possibly be grounds for taking more interest in me. His
>response to me was to ask whether I was accusing him of deliberately
>misrepresenting what I had said, to which I replied "No, I am merely
>pointing out that you have made an error that would be better sorted
>out." but I got the impression that I was going to be labelled as a
>troublemaker for all this, and so it was: I was interviewed a number
>of times, even though they had no apparent grounds for doing so.
>
>As it turned out, the person who did it was the old lady's nephew, and
>he was arrested a week or so later, but the combination of inaccurate
>recording, and then the attempted interpretation of my correction of
>the the officer's inaccurate interpretation of what I had said made me
>very wary of blindly accepting what police officers have said since
>then. At the very least, the exchanges would have been a total
>disaster for their public relations if my own experiences were not a
>one off.
A reminder, if we really needed one, that we should *always* read a
statement thoroughly and have corrections made *before* signing.
Sometimes what is written is what the interviewer wants or expects to
hear rather than the words coming out of the interviewees mouth.
Better labeled awkward than guilty.
|