I think human memory and recollection is too inconsistent to apply that label fairly.

If the cops had been around the corner when it happened and then claimed they saw it then you are right, they should face equal consequences for lying.

But if they were near enough (and the video shows some of them? Than a combination of the sounds and movement and immediate aftermath can and does totally shift your perception of reality.

Quick story: I was at work and I heard someone say something angry behind me. I turned around and "Bob" suddenly shoved "Alex". Alex shoved back and they started screaming. I got in between and broke it up, facing Bob and basically keeping him from continuing after Alex. The bosses showed up and Bob started going off screaming about how his was gonna kick Alex's ass and let's go outside and blah bla blah he shoved me!

I barked at him "You shoved Alex first you need to calm down!"

And he stopped dead and looked at me. "FUCK YOU YOU LIAR." And a rant about how I was best friends with Alex (I wasn't, but sure did like him more than Bob) and I would like to get him fired ect ect.

Now Bob was (probably is) an asshole. He ended up getting fired for berating a coworker and then coming to blows with a supervisor who told him to knock it off.

But after I dismissed his accusations and moved on with my day, I started to think about what happened.

I didn't see anything before I turned around. But I did hear a yell, like a yelp... Like someone being hit..

So I was 100% convinced of what happened, until I gave it some deep thought much later. If Alex had have stepped up and said "yeah! That's what happened!" I don't think I would have ever second guessed it, I would have put my career and reputation on the line...

Anyways, they may be fully lying and colluding, but there is a non-zeeo chance they "remembered" it like the victim claims.

Surveillance apologists like to make the argument that "in public you have no expectation of privacy." But what they don't seem to understand is that having centralized networks of cameras (and especially ones hooked up to things like facial recognition databases) creates a whole new third level that goes beyond merely "in public" and instead becomes a panopticon.

"In public" a person might remember seeing you at a certain time and location, but that doesn't mean they can trace back your whole location history along with that of everyone who was ever near you at some point along it and feed it into a computer looking for suspicious patterns. When somebody tries to follow you closely enough to do that, we call it "stalking" and it's a crime.

But somehow once thing "X" becomes "X, but with a computer" lawmakers think it's magic or some shit and previously-criminal stuff suddenly becomes A-OK! So now everybody is being criminally stalked by Ring (i.e. Amazon), Nest (i.e. Google), etc., and too many people are too computer-illiterate to even begin to grasp what a massive problem that is.