How do we judge the evidence that’s presented to us about Charlie Kirk’s death? What would we be trying to prove? What would we be able to prove? Anything?
There is no Geiger counter for the truth. What we’d be trying to prove – i.e., to test – is any one story’s credibility.
From having sat on refugee claims with the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, I’m aware that we adjudicators needed to be satisfied that what we were being told was credible – the legal test being “on a balance of probabilities”; that is, more likely than not.
We knew what sounded not credible:
- Contradictions
- Inconsistencies
- Improbabilities
- Implausibilities
- Impossibilities.
Too many of these and the narrative might be rejected.
It was frustrating that we could never know what the absolute truth was. All that it was possible to determine was what it probably wasn’t.
It’s really hard to spin a narrative. It’s easy to describe the truth, whatever it is. But, when you’re making the story up, it’s not so easy. Lots of room to trip up, contradict yourself, be inconsistent.
We’re hearing people pointing out more and more inconsistencies around Charlie Kirk’s assassination, improbabilities, impossibilities, contradictions.
In other words, people are subjecting evidence to critical analysis and I’d like to go over the grounds with you that they base their credibility analysis on. So that we can be doing this ourselves.
We tend to “believe” a narrative, judge it credible, and extend the benefit of the doubt to a narrative that features no contradictions, inconsistencies, improbabilities, implausibilities, or impossibilities.
That requires us to be aware of our own biases – including cultural biases so that we don’t cloud our judgment.
I once sat on a refugee claim from Pakistan where it was my own western bias that was preventing me from going positive on the claim. Once that was seen and corrected, the positive decision was clear. (1)
In this initial digging phase, here are some examples of elements of stories of the “rooftop” shooter that I find non-credible.
(A) The rooftop shooter hit Charlie with a 30.06. Implausible. If so, it would have blown Charlie’s head clean off.
(B) The rooftop shooter disassembled the Mauser sniper rifle before mounting the roof and reassembled it afterwards in the woods.
- Impossible. Signs of a rifle don’t appear in any earlier shots of him mounting the stairwell.
- Improbable. A Mauser is said to be hard to dis-assemble and re-assemble. No time for it. And doing so risks losing the rifle’s accuracy.
- Implausible. Why would he do that and then leave the rifle for the police to find?
(C) A young man who seems inexperienced hits a target’s throat at 200 yards? Improbable. With a sniper rifle he’s assembled on the spot, with no accuracy tests?
That’s how I’d look at the evidence.
I’d reach a finding of not credible if the case was appearing before me. The man may be complicit, but he and his circumstances present no support for his story of being the shooter.
I declare I have a bias. I want Charlie to be alive. And so I am unconsciously favoring evidence that leads in that direction or lends itself to that outcome.
Footnotes
(1) The elderly Pakistani woman was pleading abuse by relatives and police. I was satisfied with her claim. The only reservation I had was that she would not look me in the eye. I took that as a sign that she was fabricating and asked counsel for mid-hearing submissions.
He explained Pakistani custom, which was not for a woman to challenge a man by looking him in the eye. Add to that the abuse she’s suffered for refusing to cooperate. Add to that that I’m an unknown Canadian official holding her future in his hands. I was projecting western values (what I’d expect a western woman to do in those circumstances) onto an easterner.
That would be grounds for judicial review at that time in Canada. I ended the hearing and gave her claim an oral positive.