Why victims often misidentify their attackers.

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]Well, I remember learning, you know, as a young patrolman uh having Sergeant Dolan was his name, one of our training sergeants.

[00:00:08]Um you know, going on my first few calls for them. And you know, in the Bronx it was hopping, you know, we'd usually do 20, 25 calls a day, you know, boom boom boom, just job after job after job. And I was amazed, you know, not amazed, but everybody you talk to the perpetrator was always over 6 ft tall. He was always over 200 lb, you know, he always had like, you know, a.45 caliber pistol. He always had a 12-in knife. knife. And then by the time, you know, you start weeding through this, well, he told us right away, he says, "No, don't listen to any of that." He says, "Kind of see it uh uh from the outside and then determine yourself because the perp is always much bigger to the victim. The knife is always much longer to the victim. The gun is always a You know, I had cases where we we'd end up catching the guy and he literally had one of those little black cap guns that we used to play with as kids.

[00:01:00]And it was described as this giant, you know,.45 caliber,.357 magnum. It was always this big thing. In reality, it was a plastic cap gun. But you were terrified during the robbery. So you