I watched the video too.

If someone edited the video, why did they choose to make their cuts at times where cars or people are in scene? They would have gone unnoticed had they occurred a few seconds earlier. Who would be so stupid?

I use the Rising Sun hypothesis - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rising_Sun_(novel) - release a nearly hour long video that is for the very large part boring. Continuous audio so someone can zone out and not hear anything odd - it's a lot easier to hear abrupt audio changes with low concentration than to notice a video 'flicker'.

In Rising Sun there's a slightly different polemic. A security video from a murder is edited before being given to the police (albeit more sophisticated in editing), and the detective takes offense to the assumption that it wouldn't be noticed, because of a (stereotype) Japanese attention to detail and an American indifference.

We can't really say until/unless someone can find the unedited footage. Without knowing what's contained in the missing parts of the video it's all speculation. A number of people have speculated that the parts that got clipped are when the officer is conferring on the radio to try to fabricate a plausible series of events that would justify his arresting her since up until he gives her the order to step out of the car (presumably to arrest her) he has no actual justification for arresting her (cart before the horse). You can't be arrested solely for resisting arrest, so he had to come up with some sort of charge that he could claim that occurs prior to his asking her to get out of the car. In his arrest report apparently he claimed she kicked him, which in light of the video evidence is clearly BS, but whoever edited the video was probably worried that if too much of the video goes missing some very pointed questions would be asked. A small blip is more likely to be excused as a "technical glitch" particularly if the majority of the stop was captured.

I suspect it's something akin to risking a tampering with evidence charge by hiding a body.

I'm not asking why they might want to tamper with evidence. The motive for doing so is obvious. I'm asking why, if they did decide to tamper with evidence, did they do such a bad job of it? If they were already editing the video, why didn't they make their edits at times where they wouldn't be obvious?

That's obvious right? Perhaps the frames that needed to be edited out weren't conveniently conducive to a seamless end product. And, editing out too much wasn't an option for obvious reasons.

But, as another commenter stated, we can't know the answer until we know what the original video holds.

Interestingly, if they then release the full video which shows nothing, then suspicions around the overall case will presumably be calmed. That would make me wonder if it was an intentional red herring to engender more trust and reduce suspicion around her eventual death. After all, why else release obviously edited video that would raise suspicion only to later quell it with unedited footage that was always available?

> Interestingly, if they then release the full video which shows nothing, then suspicion's around the overall case will presumably be calmed.

Sadly their actions have created suspicion. Further releases of video will be doubted by a wide range of people, from calm but cautious scrutineers to rabid conspiracy theorists.

Truth doesn't matter at that point.

Absolutely. OTOH, the far weightier suspicion is around the eventual death of Ms. Bland. An effective PR strategy might be to do something relatively ancillary that heightens the overall degree of suspicion. You then unequivocally address the ancillary issue (i.e. by rleasing the full video), which has the effect of reducing suspicion overall, including on the far weightier issue. That is, people think "Hey, maybe these guys aren't so bad. Maybe we are just jumping the gun".

Not saying this is happening. But, if the full video suddenly comes out and is "all-clear", then the police department will certainly receive that benefit, whether intentional or not.

Sorry I'm late to the conversation. You know that video is made out a series of frames so maybe you can't put yourself in the shoes of someone who doesn't.

Maybe the editing was accomplished via an interface that just had a time slider.

Maybe the minimum resolution was 1 second, or five seconds...

Hell, maybe the best tech they had was the "use two VCRs, push play on one and push record on the other, push pause at the beginning and end of the segment you want to remove" method. ;)

Relink in case that goes down: https://medium.com/@BenjaminNorton/dashcam-video-of-violent-...