The Thin Blue Line Analysis

In the 1988 American documentary film,” The Thin Blue Line, by Errol Morris, an American movie director and author, he shows the Randall Dale Adams case which ended in Randall Dale Adams becoming convicted to a death sentence for murdering a police officer. The story starts in October 1976, when Randall was trying to drive home when his car ran out of fuel forcing him to hitchhike with David Ray Harris who was also driving to the same destination as Adams. While driving, a Dallas police car stops them since their car doesn’t have their headlights on and when the officer goes over to the car, someone shoots the officer and speeds off. The Dallas police officer at the scene was Robert W. Wood, who was working on graveyard shift with his partner
Woods during the event. Marshall Touchton, a Homicide Detective in Dallas, says in a quote that the female officer was in the police car and that she couldn’t remember anything about the event even though the police are supposed to be able to tell who did the crime or memorization of what had happened so that they can investigate on it. Marshall says that, “When you go to a police officer who witnessed it, you expect that they would know more than she knew”. “Procedure says that when a police officer gets to the driver’s side of the mirror, the partner on the right would be to in front of the police car to be sure everything is OK and if their partner needs help”. Speculation at the time that his partner was sitting in the car and that is why there was malt outside”. This quote explains that the police officers are expected to know how to operate and explain the evidence and what had happened at the scene is based off the confirmation bias that the police officers are professionals in their position which is to maintain peace and stability between the civilians in their district or section where they are stationed to watch over if there is anything going