By their profession, police tend to notice things others might not. For example, the medics in my family have a tendency to call body parts by their medical names, they are not being pretentious, it is just the way they have been trained to think. A fashion designer notices what you are wearing, a keep-fit instructor what one is lacking in, a teacher, where the marks are and spotting the errors.
This statement actually comes closer to the truth than your previous claims. Since you have only a vague memory of whether there's scientific evidence to support your claims, and since you have a demonstrated dislike of scientists who disagree with you, and since I've had to study this for decades as part of my profession, I'll fill you in on the parts you're getting wrong, according to the science.
The myth of the "trained observer" was debunked long ago. No amount of
ante hoc training improves observational ability or compensates for memory malleability. There are practical techniques such as recording recalled observations in a fixed medium as soon after the events as possible, but this does not improve the accuracy of reporting for police any more than it does for any other person.
What the science shows conclusively is that people in general, and juries specifically, tend to believe strongly in the proposition that police are better observers and better witnesses than non-police. Police testimony is commonly given greater weight by triers of fact. But of course this is not the same as actually being able to demonstrate greater accuracy. When tested under controlled conditions, police show no better ability to observe and recall events accurately than anyone else.
There is no such thing as a better-trained general observer. What you note about people being drawn to details that pertain to their professions or other areas of experience is confirmed empirically, but only in the context of those professions. And it arises unconsciously, over a long time, as a result of experience and not prior training. A fashion designer noting what you're wearing, where someone else might not, does not translate to being able to observe better what is going on when a ship is sinking. Similarly police officers acquire the ability to note details that relate to criminal behavior, that others might miss. This does not translate to better observational ability than others in all situations. Nor does any of it compensate for memory malleability.
What this means is that in the context of a ship in distress, the ship's crew are far more likely to be reliable witnesses to the behavior of the ship than non-seafarers. There are, of course, academic citations for all this, and I can provide the relevant authors and bodies of work if required. But I fear that they would just suffer the same fate at your vitriolic and vindictive hands as poor Dr. Loftus did when she crossed you.
So no, the science does not confirm your belief that police are generally better observers than anyone else, nor that such a claimed ability is the result of training to that effect. And given the discrepancies in the statements of the two police officers you quoted, which I note above, I think your claim is fairly thoroughly refuted.
