I'm not sure what the stats are supposed to show, but I suspect they live updated stats don't quite prove the bias the author was intending to show.
At the time I'm writing this, both the majority of those who trust and those who distrust the police saw the situations as non-threatening. The difference between the groups is about 9% points, but that is hardly the kind of difference you'd expect from how it is phrased.
That said, the point of body cameras is to help prove or disprove claims by those involved in an incident about what happened. The use of the tazer is not directly visible but even in the shaky body cam you can see the officer grabbing the tazer and hear a distinctive clicking noise as the suspect falls to the ground. It doesn't fully refute the claim that the suspect is reaching for the gun, but as far as the hands are visible, it certainly doesn't support the claim either (and the cop's aggressive behaviour while the suspect is standing still certainly makes the claim more dubious).
It's also important to realize that when these are treated as evidence they won't just be shown once. They will be scrutinized frame by frame, repeatedly, down to the individual pixels if necessary.
There is no perfect evidence. Even crystal-clear, unobscured video footage of a crime doesn't tell the whole story. But court cases are not about proving what happened -- they're about merely eliminating all reasonable doubt about whether a suspect did commit the punishable crime they are charged with.
As with all "facts" in life, court cases only deal with degrees of probability. You don't have to know because you can't actually know.
Yeah, have to admit — we really had no idea what the spread would be. In some ways, it's surprising that there's much of a difference at all—or perhaps gratifying.
A point of clarification for the curious—the majority of both groups actually found the situations threatening. The 'serious' threat percentages in the larger numbers, is confined only to the those who chose 'Very threatening' in the questions.
From what you've observed, it sounds like we should revisit that choice (earlier drafts displayed 'Somewhat threatening' and 'Very threatening' choices grouped together, in which case a strong majority of both people who trusted and distrusted the police, found the situations threatening.)
At the time I'm writing this, both the majority of those who trust and those who distrust the police saw the situations as non-threatening. The difference between the groups is about 9% points, but that is hardly the kind of difference you'd expect from how it is phrased.
That said, the point of body cameras is to help prove or disprove claims by those involved in an incident about what happened. The use of the tazer is not directly visible but even in the shaky body cam you can see the officer grabbing the tazer and hear a distinctive clicking noise as the suspect falls to the ground. It doesn't fully refute the claim that the suspect is reaching for the gun, but as far as the hands are visible, it certainly doesn't support the claim either (and the cop's aggressive behaviour while the suspect is standing still certainly makes the claim more dubious).
It's also important to realize that when these are treated as evidence they won't just be shown once. They will be scrutinized frame by frame, repeatedly, down to the individual pixels if necessary.
There is no perfect evidence. Even crystal-clear, unobscured video footage of a crime doesn't tell the whole story. But court cases are not about proving what happened -- they're about merely eliminating all reasonable doubt about whether a suspect did commit the punishable crime they are charged with.
As with all "facts" in life, court cases only deal with degrees of probability. You don't have to know because you can't actually know.