Writing - Witness accounts

 The dreadful killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis reminded me of the difficulty police have in filtering accurate witness accounts from those accounts that are not quite as accurate. I have a real-life example of how memory can play tricks on the mind when one is asked to recall something. 

What you see in the photograph are the steps in front of St. Paul's Cathedral, London. As often happens, groups tend to collect on those steps for group photographs. To set the scene, we have to go back more than thirty years to a time when I was involved in taking a party of school children for a four day visit to the capital. One of the sights we were visiting was St. Paul's, and that was where the drama began. 

When teachers take groups out of the school building, they have to check on the welfare of the kids frequently, which includes the number of children present. The stress of taking other people's children away is legion, but teachers believe in giving kids unique and memorable experiences. 

So we collected together on the steps outside the cathedral for the group photo and then set off walking the quarter of a mile or so to The London Museum. Inside the museum, we split the children into groups under the supervision of an adult, and off they went for a look round with a time to collect together to move on to our next event. When that occurred, we discovered one of the children was missing, and it was at this point that we asked people when and where the boy was last seen. It was at this point that we realised the range of discrepancies across the recollections of the rest of the group. 

Some claimed that the missing boy had been sitting with them on the cathedral steps for the photograph. 

Some claimed that they had walked with him from St Paul's to the museum. 

Some claimed they were looking at cars in the basement of the museum with the boy. 

However, all those stories were incorrect. In fact, the boy had left the group inside the cathedral to take a photograph, and by the time he'd come outside to meet up, we had already left. Obviously, the trauma for all at having lost a child in a city of 10 million people was awful, but everything was resolved safely later in the day. 

The statements made by all parties over the shooting of Ms Good have been influenced by differing views, different video lengths, and political bias. 

It would seem to me that the lady was unlawfully killed, but that is just my personal opinion. When we write, we have the opportunity to use this frailty of memory and witness accounts to enrich our stories or even to throw in the odd red herring where it is appropriate. 

Keep writing. 

God Bless