“He looked like he was trying to get away from the officers.” … “I saw a man who was handcuffed being shot. And I am sorry, maybe I am crazy, but that is what I saw.” Those two quotes came from people who had just witnessed NYC police officers as they shot serial hammer attacker David Baril. And both of their statements were completely wrong. As the NYT’s Jim Dwyer reports, “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.” It turns out that counting on first-hand witness accounts is like bringing a hammer to a gunfight.