Have you considered more mundane explanations first?
If there was a conspiracy I think they would not have made such a foolish and obvious error.
If there was a conspiracy I think they would not have made such a foolish and obvious error.
It's indeed more likely the police just bought an off-the-shelf measuring device. They often come with both imperial and proper units.
> If there was a conspiracy I think they would not have made such a foolish and obvious error.
Alas, that's not necessarily a good rule-of-thumb. Incompetence is a thing.
Compare to eg how the Russian spooks placed three copies of the game SIMS 3 in the pictures they published of an alleged assassins' lair.
(Most likely, some superior officer told the grunts to put three SIM cards for burner phones in the picture.)
Ah but how the media has such different standards for conspiracy theories when it furthers a desired narrative, rather than contradicts it.
> [...], which was then mistaken by an officer on the scene for being meaningful.
Well, my narrative here is that one way or another the officers were incompetent. Either in staging (more likely), or in assigning meaning (less likely).