Critical recall

The ‘correct’ process for conducting interviews after critical incidents is famously contentious. The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has proposed separating officers in the immediate aftermath to ensure they do not influence each other’s memory of the incident, which has been met with a largely negative response from the front line. This same issue has sparked debate across the world. Last year, Queensland Police Service (QPS) in Australia was effectively divided into two camps – one believed the best policy was to interview officers immediately after an active shooter situation; the other suggested that waiting two sleep cycles before asking any questions might have more benefits. Both views can be supported by logic. If the officers are interviewed as quickly as possible, reason suggests the details should be fresh in their minds, allowing them to better recall information they might forget or misremember later. However, delaying the process could also reduce stress and give officers time to collect their thoughts, allowing them to provide more detailed accounts of the incident. In an attempt to settle the matter, QPS approached Dr Justin Ready and his colleagues, Dr Louise Porter and Professor Geoff Alpert, from Queensland’s Griffith University. Working with the force, the researchers devised an experiment to discover the most effective time to interview officers during post-incident procedures. “We know these are volatile situations that unfold very quickly; they are traumatising, and they lead to a variety of physiological responses,” said Dr Ready. “Our goal was to identify neuropsychological tests and ways of capturing memory after active shooter simulations and test our core hypothesis. We weren’t just interested in how much detail they were able to remember about the critical incident, we were also interested in their cognitive functioning itself, or how their cognition was working.” Stress and cognition It is no surprise that responding to active shooters can place officers under intense stress. Alongside physiological effects, such as disrupting their ability to regulate the body’s cortisol hormone, this pressure can affect their perception of events and, by extension, their memory of what happened. David Klinger, a Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Missouri and St Louis, has conducted extensive research into these cognitive distortions. By interviewing officers who were tasked with responding to shooters, he identified several stress reactions that affect how they remember the incident. These include auditory exclusion – or losing the ability to hear certain things – as well as narrowing of peripheral vision and perceiving time as having either sped up or slowed down. This can cause serious issues in post-incident interviews. If officers are questioned immediately after, they may not have enough time to reflect on what happened and account for any cognitive distortions they experienced. However, due to the risk that changing their stories could undermine their credibility with investigators and prosecutors, many officers will understandably be reluctant to go back and provide a more accurate version of events. Their reluctance is easy to explain. Last November, Metropolitan Police Service custody sergeant Paul White was eventually cleared of perjury after a lengthy trial over a statement he gave in relation to the death of Sean Rigg, who collapsed after being held in a custody van. In 2009, Mr White told the IPCC that he had checked on Mr Rigg’s welfare while he was in the van, and repeated this claim at an inquest in 2012. However, after being presented with CCTV evidence showing he had not made the check, Mr White realised he had made a mistake. The court accepted this explanation. According to Dr Ready, sometimes needing to change a story is part of human nature. The human mind strongly associates causes with effects, and if certain information is missing, officers may unconsciously try to ‘fill in the hole