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. ;)