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Witness Accounts In Manhattan Hammer Attack Show The Power Of False Memory

Hammer Attack Spotlights The Power Of False Memory
Jacqueline Howard
By 

Senior Science Editor, The Huffington Post

Medical technicians tend to David Baril, who was shot and wounded by police after he pulled a hammer from a bag and lunged at officers who approached him on the street near New York's Penn Station on Wednesday, May 13, 2015. Baril, 30, is suspected of attacking four people with a hammer earlier in the week. (AP Photo/Raj Mathura)
Medical technicians tend to David Baril, who was shot and wounded by police after he pulled a hammer from a bag and lunged at officers who approached him on the street near New York's Penn Station on Wednesday, May 13, 2015. Baril, 30, is suspected of attacking four people with a hammer earlier in the week. (AP Photo/Raj Mathura)

The real world of our memory is made of bits of true facts, surrounded by holes that we Spackle over with guesses and beliefs and crowd-sourced rumors. On the dot of 10 on Wednesday morning, Anthony O’Grady, 26, stood in front of a Dunkin’ Donuts on Eighth Avenue in Manhattan. He heard a ruckus, some shouts, then saw a police officer chase a man into the street and shoot him down in the middle of the avenue.

Moments later, Mr. O’Grady spoke to a reporter for The New York Times and said the wounded man was in flight when he was shot. “He looked like he was trying to get away from the officers,” Mr. O’Grady said.

Another person on Eighth Avenue then, Sunny Khalsa, 41, had been riding her bicycle when she saw police officers and the man. Shaken by the encounter, she contacted the Times newsroom with a shocking detail.

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