As the world now knows (though many refuse to acknowledge) the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson was justifiable. Never mind the grand jury no-bill, even the politically motivated Justice Department investigation found nothing to contradict officer Darren Wilson’s side of the story. “Hands up, don’t shoot” was a lie. But the shooting of Walter Scott by South Charleston, Sough Carolina officer Michael Slager Saturday, which was caught on video, appears to be a different kettle of fish . . .
As nytimes.com reports,
The officer, Michael T. Slager, 33, said he had feared for his life because the man had taken his stun gun in a scuffle after a traffic stop on Saturday. A video, however, shows the officer firing eight times as the man, Walter L. Scott, 50, fled. The North Charleston mayor announced the state charges (of murder) at a news conference Tuesday evening.
It’s very early days in the process and there are months of investigation are still to come. Reports this morning indicate that Officer Slager has been fired. And the race hustling industry is undoubtedly in the process of getting themselves down to Carolina to enflame the situation. Stay tuned.
This is the first time I can recall even substantial evidence being used to file charges against a cop. Interesting! Maybe this is the beginning of ending widespread corruption?
The ONLY logic that should be used is “would an average citizen be charged with a crime under the same circumstances”?
If that answer is yes, then the officer should be charged too.
This. Exactly. That should be all that needs to be said.
Condition immunity needs to GO.
It’s called Qualified Immunity. It was originally granted to unarmed government employees(bureaucrats) but around 1970, it was extended to those people with guns….who worked for law enforcement. It was argued that the police couldn’t do their jobs without it….even though they’ve been doing their LEO jobs for 100 years.
That was running? Mr. Snuffaluffagus can run faster than that. And he’s a Muppet. My friends 8 year old can run faster than the guy that was shot. Are we supposed to believe that this cop couldn’t run faster than an 8 year old?
I heard 8 shots. At the unbelievably slow pace this guy was “fleeing,” how could this cop possibly justify reaching for his gun, let alone discharging it 8 times, in the back?
Aye! If there is something extenuating about the situation due to the fact that the accused is an officer then the jury can consider that something, just like it could for anyone else who wasn’t an officer. Special treatment under the law has created a monster.
“Special treatment under the law has created a monster.”
Aye!
And, the real question becomes…how to get rid of that particular monster? In this political climate, convincing enough people to support “Qualified Immunity Reform” and other necessary steps will be a VERY steep climb.
Cops get fired, charged with crimes, and convicted nearly every day across this country. Certainly not murder, but it often only makes the local news with crimes like solicitation, theft, DUI, drug use/possession etc. Hey! It’s almost as if cops are…..average people too! This cop just so happens to appear like an average murderer, a statistical anomaly in most populations, thankfully.
“Nearly every day?” I highly doubt that.
Nah, I can believe there are 365 chargeable actions from bad cops every year. There’s probably 1,000’s of them per year. But there is a big difference between chargeable and charged.
Nonsense.. who is doing the charging?.. prosecutors and cops are so close, they may as well be one..Not to mention getting fired from any union backed job is almost impossible.. ( Look at the teachers)
Then they move to the next county over and get rehired by the local PD.
Tell that to Jose Guerena, a Marine veteran gunned down in his own home by Pima County SWAT…or rather tell his widow, because the cops let Jose bleed out for an hour, before letting the paramedics in the apartment. Possibly so he wouldn’t point out that they planted his rifle on him.
Not nearly as much as they should. They get away with dui and everything else way too often just like the cop down in Tampa that showed up to work in a take home cruiser and blew a .218. He got suspended with pay for a month and his “take home” cruiser taken for a year.
Maybe, as you say, this is the beginning of a needed change. At least, let’s hope so. But, if the video was not made, then “Here’s A News Report We’d Be Reading If Walter Scott’s Killing Wasn’t On Video” –> the title of this article at Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/08/walter-scott-shooting-without-video_n_7024404.html As they note in at the end of the article, almost everything they wrote was pulled from other published reports verbatim. Without the video … just another “justified” police shooting.
+1
Think about how many killings have been ruled as “justified” before cell phone cameras?
While this appears to be a fairly open and shut case, people calling for this LEO to be tarred and feathered might want to consider that presently, Al Sharpton is using this as an example to advocate for a federalized police force! Like everyone else, I don’t appreciate SWAT teams mowing down the family pet or turning the wrong address into swiss cheese, nor shooting unarmed suspects in the back as they retreat… But careful what you wish for here. We might want to let all the facts come out. This is already being exploited for special interest gain
Just because some shady person wants to use the truth for their shady agenda, doesn’t mean that the truth is not worth standing up for.
In any case, even the most basic common sense analysis is enough to conclude that a federalized police force would have all the same kind of things, but with more bureaucracy and red tape that would allow to get them away.
There was a fairly similar case recently: http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/25/justice/south-carolina-trooper-shooting/
Although in that case while it was obviously a bad shoot (and the officer was charged as such) it seems more of an “Oh SHIT!” moment compared to this current one where he appears to try and manufacture justification afterwards.
I’m glad that was caught on camera. Chasing the slow jogger wasn’t an option?
Why?
Yeah so much for the advertising slogan…………
…America runs on Dunkin
in this case he’s too busy wheezing and searching for evidence to plant.
I witnessed a young man that could run fast pull out taser probes and take off running. It was in a Walmart parking lot just as I pulled in. A fat cop gave chase and never drew his gun. The young perp leaped over a row of hedges and when the cop tried, he tripped and fell on his face but he got up and kept running. They eventually caught the guy by using team work to surround him. I don’t understand why some cops feel the need to kill us.
The video should be irrelevant. We need cops that respect human life and act the same when no cameras are around. It is called character.
They had to try and collect that child support!
***Sarcasm Warning***
Agreed. But since that’s a pipe dream for now, let’s keep the objective records.
Cops get pissed when you make them run, but usually they just tune you up and put their fat knees in your neck.
One of the side effects of the race-baiters is the “boy who cried wolf” effect.
Even if this does turn out to be a just and proper charge against the officer, I’m sure there will be many people who will say he got railroaded. So the divides just get deeper.
How do we stop this, e.g. get the baiters to shut up and wait for due process to, well, process?
The death penalty for this cop should help. He could get it and he absolutely deserves it. Normally I reserve judgment for a trial but the video is right there for everyone to see, thankfully.
How does it stop? Hold officers accountable for their actions just like the rest of us. That is the only way this will simmer down and it will probably take a long time. So many special carve outs in the laws for agents of government need to be done away with as well. Once law is applied equally and fairly, the race-baiters will likely continue but they will be off mark and largely ignored.
Nailed it.
After observing a black officer escalate a situation with a white male other day. I have come too the conclusion that every cop that has been trained in the last 15 years needs retraining & any that were hired out of the military be especially retrained. They are treating us as the indigenous population to pacify.
To be fair, it would help a lot too if people getting pulled over for speeding or whatever would just sit there and take the ticket. But no, some people have to treat an encounter with the cops as an opportunity to curse and act badly. Common civility went away. Why?
That said, the cop straight up killed that guy. He needs to be charged, tried and convicted just like you or I would be in the same situation.
Well that’s because it couldn’t possibly be their fault that they’re getting a ticket!
Always think back to the cartoon of the principal’s office…
Back then it was “What did my kid do?” Today it’s “My kid wouldn’t do that!”
Unrelated to the incident in the article,…
To be fair to the times,.. now that kids can’t be kids, public schools are run like penitentiaries, and the severity to which kids are punished is extreme ( e.g. finger pops guns getting 1st graders expelled). If you get a call from the school about a disciplinary issue with your kid, you had better be on your kids side and rail against any disciplinary action the school wants to take and handle the issue between you and your kids. The days of washing blackboards are long over.
Related to the topic of the this post,… Yea. Don’t F@#$ with the Po-leece. If they tell me, I’ll sit. If they tell me I’m going to jail, that’s where I’m going with no fuss about.
It’s funny, or maybe I’m just lucky. But I say yes, sir; no, sir; no sir, I don’t know how fast I was going sir, I was not looking at my speedometer; and thus far I’ve been let go with warnings (well, except Coronado, CA where I was doing 5 mph over the speed limit- 40 in a 35).
Being respectful can often get you out of a jam, unless there’s a revenue shortage.
…and then they will shoot you respectfully in your back?!
Maybe people wouldn’t get angry at the person robbing them if A) they weren’t robbing them and B) they weren’t total jackasses while doing it? When Officer Toughguy is strutting up to a minivan driven by a pregnant woman and he has his hand on his gun and starts yelling at her the second he gets to her vehicle, that’s not going to inspire her to be polite.
Personally, I laugh when I get speeding tickets. Why? Because I know that it’s a matter of the sad little cop’s ego being hurt by me driving a sports car. I’ve lived in the same part of town my entire life, drive the same roads, drive the same speed, etc – yet after I sold the sedan and got a sports car, suddenly the tickets started.
Ahhh…powers of observation. He’s got coin, dry hump him for revenue.
Ragnar, I have no special insight into what happened there, but if you saw the car in question, it is one of those which, while not new, is maintained in flawless condition, not even a speck of dust on it. Yet he was pulled over for a brake light out. Which should necessitate a shout-out of “your left brake light is out!” as you pass by. Then a burned out brake light was somehow escalated to use of a taser and then cold-blooded murder of a fleeing citizen whose car you are in possession of, he probably would not be hard to find. He’s 54, not a teenaged gang banger. I call bullshit, and I do not believe at this stage that there was any tail light out, before the stop (although there may be one now!). The video also seems to show the cop handcuffing the corpse and then planting the taser on the body. This is some sick shit, here, and the video somehow does not match up with the description of the encounter given by the cop, and the citizen with the video does not want to be identified, much less murdered in his sleep along with his family.
IOW, I don’t think that just accepting the ticket was going to defuse this situation.
The handcuffing the corpse thing is apparently SOP, to prevent the possibility of a suspect feigning serious injury or death and then running of while the officer is distracted. Looks cruel and unnecessary, and maybe it is, but it’s not out of line with what cops are trained to do.
Everything else about this screams murder and attempted cover-up.
Handcuffing someone who is potentially seriously injured or ill can be medically dangerous. If someone isn’t going to clear airways, stop bleeding, position them so they can breath easier, etc then then cuffing them ought to be considered negligent or worse. If someone has a spinal injury, flipping them around and cuffing them could aggravate any injury and cause permanent damage. I cringe every time I see cops cuffing someone who is possibly seriously injured, in cardiac or respiratory distress. IMHO, if the act of cuffing someone creates a medical issue or worsens it, then the cop(s) ought to be charged criminally.
Civility goes out the window when laws are passed, and enforced without the basics of critical thinking…If it’s ” OK” to drive the freeway at 70 MPH today, But it was a crime yesterday,to drive the same road over 55, where is the logic?. You are asking the public to Just sit and take it, without voicing their opposition… Gun control was widely implemented the same way..Perhaps Police need to exercise the same critical thinking with respect to stupid traffic laws?.. I know many sheriffs across the country are refusing to comply with stupid gun laws.
Yes, but gun control doesn’t give the department money. When it becomes “Having a rifle with a barrel shorter than 16″ results in a $250 ticket and you’re sent on your way”, all of those upstanding Sheriffs / police chiefs will rapidly change their tune.
To be fair, it’s the cop’s responsibility to NOT escalate a situation.
This is an excellent point.
Please bring this one as often as necessary.
Here in NC, the DGU laws specifically state that you cannot be an instigator to the event if you want to use the affirmative defense of ‘self defense.’
As stated above and elsewhere in different contexts, this needs to apply to cops like it does the rest of us. In spades. If a cop escalates a situation beyond something measurable by an “objective reasonableness” standard, he should lose all claims of self defense. Or even “resisting arrest” claims. I could see that fitting as well.
Yup!.. Totally agree!…
I hate to tell you this, but that is the opposite of how they have been trained for the last 20ish years (depending on locale). Police are trained to ‘command and control’ and escalate rapidly until this “control” is achieved. Not to mention letting veterans of the last 20 years be cops – recipe for disaster.
They are trained that there is no acceptable scenario other than compliance with police orders. This non-felony man was guilty of a bad decision and contempt of cop. He was executed for his non-compliance. Happens far more often than this, just this time there was vid.
Suspect civility has nothing to do with it, Ragnar. If officers didn’t behave so badly (they are the public servants, after all) and were actually held accountable like everyone else, most people would want to be civil and friendly to them. I don’t believe that the rank and file non-law enforcement citizen wants to be uncivil. Bring back the model of peace officer, hold everyone accountable to the same standards, eliminate special laws for agents of government where they aren’t absolutely essential, and we will see genuine common civility between officers and non-officers.
This struck me because I realized that it looks like you may have alluded to the application of law in regards to military members. The thing is, the military not only has to comply with all local, state, and national laws, but also the UCMJ, which is far more restrictive than any of those. While police get special exemptions and treatment, the military has an even finer line to tread. The military is actually held *more* accountable than police are.
Nah, I wasn’t even thinking about the military but I can see how my comment might have left that impression. At one time, I was subject to the UCMJ and didn’t really have a problem with it because I volunteered (i.e. wasn’t drafted) and there was opportunity for me to read it before making a commitment. Of course, the UCMJ may have changed much since then but I haven’t even given it a cursory look since.
When I refer to agents of government, I’m more writing about civilian employees and, perhaps in a slight round about way, military personnel deployed on US soil. But, I’m not sure that I am for or against the UCMJ being eliminated or dramatically changed.
I’m 100% convinced that the rules of engagement where changed to “pull and use your gun at the slightest hint of danger” due to the fact that women officers cannot be expected to win a hand-to-hand fight with a man even when spotted with a billy-club.
Yet another fvcked up outcome due to leftist social experimentation and their crazy idea that “women are just as capable as men” ….which I guess is true when the only job requirement is pulling a trigger.
“Being on the Left means never having to say you were wrong or sorry”….Prager
Wow that’s just a pathetic excuse for a comment…
It’s an opinion for sure, but it’s logical and demonstrates and understanding of possible outcomes and consequences of a certain worldview. I thought it was applicable.
Not sure about the second paragraph but the first is absolutely true. Google “Wossen Assaye” “Sean Killon” or “Brian Nichols”
Actually I don’t think it should be dismissed as just a sexist comment, but something that should be openly discussed if we are brave enough to challenge the thought police. I’ve had the same questions come to mind. In February, we had a police shooting in my neck of the woods where a female officer stood over a suspect lying face down after she had tazed him and then put two rounds into his back killing him. It was all caught on taser cam. She was just charged with homicide about a week ago. She claimed his hands were moving under his body where she could not see them. By all accounts, she was a good cop. Why did she feel it necessary to use lethal force on a 59 year old man that she had just dazed and was lying facedown? Did she not feel she had the physical strength to control him at that point?
Just want to clarify that my above statement is not a sexist rant against women but rather the blunt common sense fact that the average woman is not going to win a fist fight with the average man.
Now of coarse there are the relatively rare circumstance where a woman is physically capable (especially if she gets to use martial arts) and I have no problem if a woman serves on the police if she passes the physical standards of old. BUT we all know that the physical requirements were greatly watered down for ONE REASON, to satisfy the whining of leftists who take the attitude that there’s no differnce between men and women.
Also, same thing is going to happen to the finest military in the world.
@ jeremy saying Wow that’s just a pathetic excuse for a comment…
I guess that is another way of saying that you are perturbed that you don’t have a response or rebuttal.
I’m more than willing to debate all three paragraphs.
You can start your enlightenment here…
http://www.prageruniversity.com/courses.php
5 minute courses on various topics that the Left hates….since all of them are based on truths.
If a cop doesn’t use a taser etc and instead decides to fight someone with his hands the department gets sued because it looks ugly.
This fact accounts for why women commit more than half of the violence in the world, because they have little option except to escalate force.
Oh, wait, it doesn’t mean that at all, because you pulled that stat out of your butt. Don’t condemn half the human race based on preconceived notions.
I don’t see where he condemned half of the human race. And it’s not a “preconceived notion” to note that size requirements and physical-strength entry requirements have long been, ahhh, “modified” in order to keep from excluding too many female candidates from consideration for employment as patrol officers (and firefighters, for that matter). Nor is it a “preconceived notion”, nor a “condemnation” to note that as a whole females are smaller and have less upper-body strength than males. I myself wouldn’t go so far as to opine that the “rules” have been changed to accommodate lesser physical strength on the part of female officers, but it isn’t a completely groundless opinion.
Got your panties in a twist because I said something politically incorrect and against what your leftist teacher indoctrinated you in but which also happens to be dead nuts true.
How would you like to be pulled from an upper story building if you were incapacitated in a fire by a woman firefighter who dragged you down the stairs feet first. You get to hit your head on every stair. My uncle (a retired lieutenant in a big city FD) witnessed this.
I see the problem as a changing worldview which currently holds that physical violence, as in fistfights, are part of an LEOs job description. I could accept your argument against women in the military, but a police officer should never be placed in a position where he/she needs to be a wrestling champion. If offered physical violence, the officer should offer to shoot the offender, in return. If offered the offender’s receding back as the offender attempts to escape, a decision has to be made. If the attempted arrest is for mass murder, empty your mag. If it is for double parking, yell a nasty taunt or two, then forget it. This example is pure murder, pending further revelations, such as “upon stopping the car, Officer X observed it was filled with high explosives.”
I agree with you comment except, If the attempted arrest is for mass murder, empty your mag. At that point, the individual is usually still just a suspect. This justification gets stretched over time again until it becomes justification for murdering a suspected because the cop just wanted to go home safely after the shift. If a non-cop couldn’t shoot and then walk from charges then the cop shouldn’t.
I’d wager 75%+ of shootings of perps could have been handled with a judicious crack to the noggin with a billy club. Seemed to work in the past.
Yeah I pulled that stat out of my azz.
Sorry, but if we are to have civilized police, then they damn well best be able to hold their own without resorting to the gun as the first choice, not the last. Several generations of cops in my family, from the days when it was a dangerous job, and you really might get killed doing it, in the dangerous city that they worked in (Chicago/Chicagoland).
If someone wasn’t getting ready to shoot you, you better be able to take them down without shooting them. Only a pathetic pansy who has no business being a cop is not able to do that. No you don’t have to take on three, or anything preposterous, but one-on-one if you can’t help yourself you’re in the wrong line. My grandfathers (both of them) would have had this sad excuse for a cop drummed out long before this incident.
Or, They could pull a Camden and fire them all and rehire..
How did that work out? Factor in the millions of dollars it takes to hire and train a whole new department.
Georgia (the country, not the state) did just that to deal with their endemic corrupt police problem. It worked out just fine. The trick was that they rehired a lot fewer people than they fired, but the pay was better and the training much more thorough.
The result? Police corruption plummeted, and public perception police turned from dismal to overwhelmingly (80+%) positive.
http://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/nation-building-police-reform-lessons-from-georgia-4696/
I agree.
He didn’t even try to chase the guy.
I’m an out of shape, fat guy and I could have outrun the suspect.
Yeah, even before he’s hit for the first time, the guy is not running very hard to get away. Almost seemed to be thinking ” … well, if he chases me, then I’ll give up.” But the officer didn’t hesitate to clear leather.
If the cop wasn’t going to chase him (he had the suspect’s automobile and information) I could see the cop drawing to cover him in case he was going to turn and fight. Shooting the guy in the back though while the guy was retreating… 🙁
Again, just being devil’s advocate, if he had believe that the man was armed and a threat, why would he chase him? If he has a weapon, closing the distance between them would be a bad thing to do.
Still looks weak, though. We need to wait and see. He’ll never get convicted because he’s a cop.
Again, just being devil’s advocate, if he had believe that the man was armed and a threat, why would he chase him?
Especially when you can use his running away as free target practice to increase your skills…am I reading you right?
Again, just being devil’s advocate, if he had believe that the man was armed and a threat, why would he chase him?
So your proposing that cops shouldn’t give foot chase because that might be dangerous so instead just shoot the perp in the back. Uh huh.
Hey … wait a second…..maybe we can implement this new “don’t chase, just shoot” rules of engagement so that we can employ wheelchair bound handicapped policemen so that we can pat ourselves on the back about how forward thinking and enlightened we are?
The cop claimed that the guy took away his Tazer, so that was the weapon in question.
But the most damning part of the video is where after he shoots the guy and cuffs him, he goes back, picks up the Tazer, and then drops it near the body. And then the official story is “suspect tried to taze the police officer”. And not a single cop that was on the scene – and we see at least one on the video who saw all this – said anything about that.
Exactly. I’m waiting and hoping that other cop gets burned for not coming forward. That’s the reason it is said there are no good cops. If the good ones lie for the bad ones there is no difference.
I saw one version of the video where it starts just a split second before the shooting happens. I’d like to see all of it to get a little more context, however, there’s no denying he unloaded his weapon into a fleeing suspect. This one has the potential to get real ugly, real quick.
Really have to question the neuron connectors in the officers brain housing group. Did he in fact look at the guy recording and not register the event was being recorded.
I think that some officers and departments are slow to get certain messages. Look at Photography Is Not A Crime (PINAC) and open carry. There are still cops who harass for open carry where legal and for shooting video where legal; all while being recorded no less. In this case, I think that the cop felt a-okay doing what he did and didn’t think that there would be any real accountability. IMHO, the situation really has gotten that bad.
Joelt1, remember this is not a surveillance camera, some citizen saw some shit going down and fired up his iphone. That may be as far back as the video goes, and the witness who took it (now referred to as “the only” witness)does not want to get involved. I would like to at least hear what made him fire up that camera? What did he see, before the first frame?
” I would like to at least hear what made him fire up that camera? What did he see, before the first frame?”
The cynic in me thinks the whole leadup from Trayvon, Mike Brown, etc….
I’m 100 percent fine with that.
And I’m very happy the citizen rolled video on that.
I know some of the LE folks will disagree me, but I think the police should have mandatory personal video rolling in the course of their duties (but not on lunch breaks, etc.).
The police need the mindset that they are being watched while doing their duties. Dealing with the FOIA aspect needs to be hammered out, the video being seen by anyone filing a request needs a good reason to see it.
the video being seen by anyone filing a request needs a good reason to see it.
IMHO, you have that backwards. The way it is supposed to be now is that government has to have a good reason to kept it from the public. That criteria works fine. Most of these videos would be things that happen in public where there can be no real expectation of privacy. The person wearing the camera is a public official/servant. These videos should be available under public records requests. If a journalist wanted to do a story, the video should be obtainable… and anyone can be a “journalist” for the purposes of freedom of the press. Restricting access to body camera video to only “good reason” will end up like concealed carry licenses in certain may issue states; rare or never. To have body cameras and then restrict public access to the footage based upon need would severely undercut the value of the footage. The police departments could play cat and mouse with the video so that only those with enough money to sue and wait them out could realistically have access to the footage.
Without jumping to conclusions, this looks pretty bad.
But we finally have proof that all cops are racist murderers. (/drippingwithsarcasm)
Oh no not racist murders, just roaming tax assessors, looking to roll some asset forfeiture or bail payout and events sorta getting out of hand.
Folks its not a RACE issue, that’s cover for the continued fleecing of citizens to pad jurisdiction coffers. Every arrest gets a blue crew higher on the board, better pay, more recognition, shinny bits of ribbon. Years of tiny steps over the line, roll into a big one and then the system that supported your fleecing chucks you under the bus or a trip down the mortar tube.
IDK if this one had a racial component or not. I highly doubt that it did. However, some of the incidents have. The John Crawford murder, for example, probably involved racial bias aggravated by the 911 caller lying. Our white open carriers have had fake 911 calls placed against them (one in particular I remember was in a Walmart) and didn’t get that over the top treatment.
But, I do agree with your overall comment.
You claim sarcasm but police unions across the country will side with this guy until the end.
Without knowing squat about it. Yes, they will.
Broken taillight…..wonder if he was a drug interdiction officer, working to generate revenue. skirting around the fourth amendment and just sorta got out of hand….move the thing closer to the subject….er non law abiding citizen. Cause if your running your guilty of something….right?
Inflame away poverty pimps, you just might be right this time.
I’m about 90%+ the way on the conservative side and I’m ready to take the grand social experiment of decriminalizing all drugs. Provide all drugs people want at bargain pricing/free along with required rehabilitation classes.
However I don’t believe any of the sunshine predictions from the pot heads that it will reduce crime. I can only imagine that there will be millions of thugs trying to replace their income stream by robbing and stealing from Joe Public. I’d bet much of the saved money from the drug war would have to be put into building jails. It will be a hell of a social experiment. I’d imagine that the worse crime increase will be in the leftist cities and that’s just fine with me.
We’ve pissed away over $1T on the “War on Drugs”. We’ve incarcerated tens of thousands, ruined more lives for breaking some abstract rule. For all that ‘prevention’, we’ve created a class of violent criminals who constantly kill each other because there’s so much money in smuggling. Not to mention a whole agency of parasites (DEA) who rely on the illegality.
And the actual outcome? Almost the exact same addiction rates as back when you could order morphine and coke legally through the Sears catalog. The problems of drugs are mostly driven by the fact that since they’re illegal, they’re expensive and not lab grade. Tens of millions of alcoholics lead productive lives until they pull it together, because the drug is reasonably priced, chemically pure, and unless they’re hammered while driving, they have no fear of arrest. Like all drugs, only a few percent actually become addicted – the vast 90%+ majority use them recreationally here and there.
Just to be the devil’s advocate, the police officer says that the deceased tried to take his stun gun. I see a small black object at the feet of the deceased as he started to run away.
If that were the stun gun or if it were the weapon that the police officer later tossed down on the body, then there’s a case to be made that the police officer was in fear that the deceased was still armed and dangerous.
Seems weak sauce to me, but we should wait this out. My suspicion is that the officer was charged with murder quickly to mollify the racists. If they ever get a conviction, I’ll be gob smacked.
That….and they will inspect the vehicle and a major drug haul along with cash will clear the officer of all charges.
I’d be very interested to know what that object is, because the cop seems to go back and pick it up, bring it over to the victim’s body and drop it there. If that’s what happened (it’s not clear from that video), that’s pretty damning evidence that the cop knows his story is pretty weak.
Weak story or not, it’s tampering with evidence.
Pretty sure that will turn out to be the taser, but if I were that cop, my story would sure be that I moved it to the location of the corpse so that I could keep both under my control, since otherwise the taser could have been stolen. Of course, that is out the window if he did not mention it before the video showed up.
You mean the TASER that the officer picked up and placed next to the victim after the shooting?
Yes, that certainly appears to be the case. But if he can convince a jury that when he shot the man he was in fear that he was still armed and an immediate danger to him, then he would not be guilty of murder. He would be guilty of tampering with a crime scene, which occurs after the murder, er, shooting.
Of course, it would also be evidence of a guilty officer trying to cover his tracks . . .
Hadn’t the taser already been deployed against Scott? If so what was the guy going to do, point it at the cop and say “BANG” in a loud voice? Scott had an outstanding warrant for not making child support payments.
If you’re poor and living on an economic ragged edge, child-support payments, while legal and appropriate, can still pose unsolvable problems. If you live paycheck to paycheck, having an unexpected visit to the dentist or an expansive car-repair can so put you behind the 8-ball that you can’t make the child-support payments. If you’re black and run from a cop, that can get you killed.
A man already a good distance away from you or me and still running away would be a stretch if one was claiming to be in fear of imminent serious bodily injury or death. Especially if it all hinged upon a possibly already deployed Taser. The deceased was already away from the officer and continuing away from the officer when he was shot eight times in the back! I couldn’t reasonably call that self-defense if I were on a jury.
“…to mollify the racists…”
Perhaps take race out of this. Disregard this being a white cop and a black suspect. What do you see In the video now? Yeah, pretty much the same thing. A cop shooting a fleeing suspect in the back, numerous times.
I can take race out of it all day long. The black racists won’t.
Maybe it would be easier to take race out of these shootings if more white people got out and protested these shootings instead of siding with the government killers.
Maybe less white people (and nonwhite people) would side with the “government killers” if the narrative didn’t constantly go from “didn’t do nothin'” to “was, in fact, doing something, and the officer was in the right but let’s ignore that in hopes that we can get our Selma moment.”
Or maybe white people should end their tendencies to give cops the absolute benefit of the doubt and support calls for independent civilian reviews of all shootings. This particular case would have ended in yet another “justifiable” rubber-stamp without video evidence.
The victim knocked the stun gun out of the hand of the cop and ran. The cop shot him 8 times in the back. Picks up the stun gun and plants it on the body and told his CO the victims aimed it at him.
Yeah burn this EXPLETIVE DELETED alive I say.
How did a Taser get deployed on a stop for a burned out tail light, which we all know was not burned out. I’m starting to pick up “broken” now, which is more like it. A cop cannot somehow make a light burn out after murdering someone, but he can sure break it. Look at the pictures of the car. That guy did not drive around with a broken tail light, unless it was to the auto parts shop. This was an illegal stop, an illegal use of force, and finally murder, I betcha.
The guy was tased. You can see the wires as he starts to run. If pulling on the wires is considered “trying to take the taser” then I guess that is what happened. The cop dropped the taser and drew his gun.
I guess you could say the dead man was trying to take the cops bullets from him too.
Don’t you know, the Kelly Thomas murder was justified because the man was bruising the cops’ knuckles and feet with his face and neck.
Well, there was that guy in Ferguson whom the cops charged for property damage when he bled on their uniforms as they were beating him…
From the available evidence, this is simply murder. And to make matters worse, it appears that the officer altered the crime scene, by moving his TASER from its original location, and placing it next to the victim – apparently to corroborate his “he’s got my TASER” claim over the radio. If true, that action would imply mens rea that should easily justify a murder conviction.
I think Tennessee v. Garner applies directly here. This “fleeing felon” was in no way an immediate threat to anyone. He was (presumably) merely attempting to flee an arrest for a bench warrant for unpaid child support.
If you watch the entire video you can see something fall to the ground just before the man starts to run. It’s possible the man grabbed the TASER from the officer. In that moment the officer could say he was in fear of his life. As soon as the man starts to run the situation changed. Straight up murder. Now, will the officer that watched the murderer retrieve the evidence and plant it on the victim be charged with accessory after the fact?
Watch the whole thing. He picked up the taser and put it back in his holster. He definitely tried to plant it at first but the other cop was not going to corroborate the story.
I think there was a struggle for the taser but only after it was deployed. When the video first starts, before the cop and man come into view, you can hear sounds that are similar to the sound that a taser charge makes. Then as the video shows the two, you can see as the man starts to run that there are wires connected to him.
I watched the video again. He does pick it up just after he plants it. I still say if the other officer didn’t report that he did what he did he needs to be charged. I’m sure the official report will state that he reported it right away.
If someone is deploying a Taser against me, batting at the Taser while I still could (if close enough) while rolling away to dislodge the probes seems like the best chance at stopping the current. Perhaps he batted it out of the officer’s hand. None, IMHO, justifies this murder. The guy was already a good enough distance away from the officer and attempting to put more distance. He was obviously in retreat and not a threat.
If it was reported right away, then why wasn’t it in the official story from PD (which specifically had the offending cop’s “he tried to taze me” story) until the video came out? If true, it would be even worse, as then it’s the PD officials concealing evidence.
This, pure and simple.
A fleeing suspect who has his back to you is not a threat (and dozens of feet away). He only becomes a threat if he turns around and charges (a la Michael Brown).
Do you really believe that if you shot and killed an unarmed attacker AFTER he had run dozens of yards away, EVEN THOUGH he had turned around to face you again, that you would not be charged with a crime?
Evidence WHAT evidence? Staying in the Snark column and working my way into the gutter of oblivion.
I think you need to study up on the Garner v Tennessee case Chip mentioned. It absolutely is a question in cases like this, but I think you are interpreting it wrong.
Garner defines the so-called “fleeing felon rule.” When is it “legally ok” for a cop to use deadly force on a fleeing felon? The term felon there is important.
As it was taught to me, Garner gives cops the latitude to use deadly force on a fleeing felon, even if of no direct threat to that cop if certain specific additional circumstances are present.
One of those circumstances is that the fleeing felon is armed and dangerous AND poses a public safety threat. The last part is the important part to digest and ponder carefully…the felon does not have to be pointing a gun at the cop in this case…BUT (and it’s a VERY big but)…
A cop in this situation will have to justify the public safety threat is serious. This was put in the Garner ruling for cases like a bank robber getting into a shootout with cops then running away…still armed. Under a ‘normal’ self defense criteria, such a fleeing felon would pose no immediate threat to a cop he just had a shoot-out with, but just may pose a serious threat to anyone else he encounters. Might he carjack someone, or shoot a bystander to distract pursuing cops?
This is what makes cops deadly force in fleeing felons under Garner tricky in general, and the court specifically saw shooting a fleeing felon as the exception rather than the rule. The public safety angle is a thorny thing…clear in textbook examples but far less so “on the street.”
In other words, threat discussed in Garner is broader than just the officer himself.
The take-home from this is from my lay person’s interpretation, I think this cop will have a VERY, VERY hard time justifying this shooting on the basis of Garner, even if he DID struggle over the TASER or whatever.
This is, again, a non-lawyer’s opinion. I welcome correction or expansion on this idea by the lawyers.
Garner….the get out of jail card for every in the back shoot for every officer in the good ole US of A
“Garner….the get out of jail card for every in the back shoot for every officer in the good ole US of A”
That simply is not true. The decision was specific: in general shooting a fleeing felon is not ok (in the back or otherwise), but the court recognized that certain exceptions had to exist.
Deadly force on a fleeing felon is only very rarely ‘acceptable,’ and in those cases the cop had better be well beyond darn sure the public safety risk met the standard.
Part of the on-going problem we have with Garner, however, is the increasing list of things (wrongly) called felonies. Non-violent, fiat-felonies should NEVER justify deadly force under Garner.
If you have specific case examples to cite, something more substantive than snark, where Garner was specifically used to justify shooting someone in the back, I sure would like to read the case.
You will recall that the cop LOST in the Garner decision at the Supreme Court.
In fact, the Garner decision addressed this very point, at the very beginning of the opinion:
Well, the Mike Brown case is different yet, in that Brown had already demonstrated himself to be an imminent threat, by committing a strong-arm robbery and assaulting a police officer in the span of about 10 minutes. Had Brown been shot in the back, the situation would have been more in the gray area (and far more burden of proof placed on Wilson), but still plausibly justified.
In this case, the victim was a 50-year-old man, apparently trying to evade a warrant for failure to pay child support – hardly evidence of violence/danger.
Here we go again. Send 10,000 fire extinguishers to North Charleston, S.C.
Another ugly. People get a grip.
Not unlike sending a dozen police to write a traffic ticket….
This case is gonna be ugly. As much as many have said that we should not pre-judge these kinds of incidents, there is enough evidence shown to suspect that the officer deserves some legal ramifications. Having said that, the previous 30 seconds of video and audio might mitigate some of the officers legal woes.
The victim was not unknown to the criminal justice system. If he has a history of violence and was threatening to kill the cop during the unrecorded struggle, a murder charge may not be sustainable(although a D.A. will probably persue one). If nothing else this case will fan the flames of racial tension.
Current story (check time stamp) is zero violence charges in his life. Zero. Cops say “long rap sheet”, turns out he’s had repeated financial woes and no forgiveness from babymommy. Zero violence. No weapon. No excuse. And I bet all the pieces of that broken taillight are on the ground right where the car was.
Fry this SOB
Better yet dry hump his colon in prison. The ultimate revenge for gay liberals imposing their views on the bible belt.
>> Better yet dry hump his colon in prison. The ultimate revenge for gay liberals imposing their views on the bible belt.
“Rape for Jesus”?
I think Garfunkel and Oates had something different in mind…
The union is not going to like this one bit.
The community should be bracing itself for slower than normal response times and “work to the rule” tactics that will be employed by the union in retaliation.
Union? In charleston SC? That would be a shock.
That’s my chuckle for the day.
Right to work state, insuring that the rights of Police getting trigger time on moving targets are protected in the workplace.
Why has nobody else pointed out that in the first few moments of the video it does indeed seem like the “scuffle over the taser” took place, and it is also clear that the officer clearly lost control of the taser as it hits the ground behind him during the altercation. Don’t get me wrong, I do not believe when the officer fired his weapon he was in grave danger or fearing for his life, but during the initial struggle for the taser (that we only caught the tail end of) he may have been extremely terrified. Now, how that affects the follow-up action during a fleeing attempt, i have no idea. Gonna be ugly, this one. I also believe that he was fired and arrested to quell the racists and to protect the officer.
When the imminent threat is over, so should be the justification for the use of deadly force.
If they had gotten into a fight yesterday, is it still OK to shoot him today?
“Now, how that affects the follow-up action during a fleeing attempt, i have no idea”
Maybe you missed this line.
Of course a yesterday and today example is clear but this however is not. Nor am I a lawyer or pretend to be, though I did stay at a holiday Inn express last night.
Just like all other things, what we find to be given or in common practice doesn’t mean that the law also interprets those actions and circumstances in the same way.
Huffpo reported this: Scott had been arrested about 10 times in the past, mostly for failing to pay child support or show up for hearings, according to the paper.
“He has four children, he doesn’t have some type of big violent past or arrest record. He had a job, he was engaged,” a lawyer for Scott’s family told the Times. “He had back child support and didn’t want to go to jail for back child support.”
If this is true, then the reason for him running is perhaps a warrant for not paying child support, getting arrested, cost of posting bail, no pay for court time away from work. This results in a revolving money machine for the city.
Now less than stellar citizen, over weight and under stress with an street investigation snapped and now dead. Looks like the kids loose the coin…oh sweetie, no cereal today cause the po po popped your da da.
I wonder how timely he’ll be with child support payments now…
Big payday for the law dogs and the kids. CoCo Puffs for everyone and perhaps full scholarships by the state.
They really don’t care Mr. Scott got shot dead, the city is going to fling the officer under the bus for the coin cost to the city. Then his blue crew will shit on him, and finally the prison system will lapse over watching him and that’s when the prison population will have their way. He won’t be tough without his uniform, badge and gun. Unless his an arrogant f**k, I’ll place a benny on him smoking his personal 9 before this is over.
I wonder how many more killings will take place because of debt?
Could be payday by suicide?
Oh, they don’t want to kill people for that, that’s actually a flaw in the system. They just want them to not pay so that they can keep piling late payment fines, so that they’re perpetually on the hook. Start with a fine just large enough that someone living paycheck-to-paycheck can’t pay it in one go, and just go from there. There are numerous recorded cases where people with a $150 initial fine ended up paying over a thousand into the court system, and still owing more.
It’s my understanding that with a parents death the under 18 children can draw a regular monthly check from SSI.
SSI is needs based so it wouldn’t come from that program at first. It seems that survivor benefits rely on the deceased parent’s working quarters and their age at death. The children could get from, 71-99% of the worker benefit if the parent was not already disabled and drawing from Social Security. If he was disabled, they would likely get 100% of the benefit regardless of his age at death. This probably wouldn’t be coming from the needs based (welfare) SSI. If the child works and their income is above a certain amount, it will reduce or eliminate the survivor benefit. Any lawsuit money from the father’s estate to the children should also reduce or eliminate the survivor benefit. Additionally, divorced spouses can qualify for the benefit.
http://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10084.pdf
“Life insurance” from Social Security
Many people think of Social Security only as a retirement program. But some of the Social Security taxes you pay go toward providing survivors insurance
for workers and their families. In fact, the value of the survivors insurance you have under Social Security is probably more than the value of your individual life insurance.
When you die, certain members of your family may be eligible for survivors benefits. These include widows, widowers (and divorced widows and widowers), children and dependent parents.
How do I earn survivors insurance?
As you work and pay Social Security taxes, you earn credits toward your Social Security benefits. The number of years you need to work for your family to be eligible for Social Security survivors benefits depends on your age when you die. The younger you are, the fewer years you need to work. But no one needs more than 10 years of work to be eligible for any Social Security benefit.
Under a special rule, if you have worked for only one and one-half years in the three years just before your death, benefits can be paid to your children and your spouse who is caring for the children.
Who can get survivors benefits based on your work?
•Your widow or widower may be able to receive full benefits at full retirement age. The full retirement age for survivors is age 66 for people born in 1945-1956 and will gradually increase to age 67 for people born in 1962 or later. Reduced widow or widower benefits can be received as early as age 60. If your surviving spouse is disabled, benefits can begin as early as age 50. For more information on widows, widowers and other survivors, visit http://www.socialsecurity.gov/survivorplan.
•Your widow or widower can receive benefits at any age if
she or he takes care of your child who is receiving Social Security benefits and younger than age 16 or disabled.
•Your unmarried children who are younger than age 18 (or up to age 19 if they are attending elementary or secondary school full time) also can receive benefits. Your children can get benefits at any age if they were
disabled before age 22 and remain disabled. Under certain circumstances, benefits also can be paid to your stepchildren, grandchildren, stepgrandchildren or adopted children.
•Your dependent parents can receive benefits if they are age 62 or older. (For your parents to qualify as dependents, you would have had to provide at least one-half of their support.)
I don’t believe that it would come from the SSI program (needs based, aka welfare) first because the insurance is based on quarters of earnings and age of the deceased. I could be wrong though.I tried to post a detailed response but it didn’t take. http://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10084.pdfETA: On further reflection, unless he was already receiving SSDI benefits (already disabled and drawing), it probably would come from the SSI program.
(I’m having all kinds of problems with the comment system and this reply. 🙁 )
Any lawsuit money from his estate to the children would likely reduce or eliminate any Social Security Insurance survivor’s benefit.
I’ve seen this reported a few times now, but have not seen any links to the video. This looks though to be nothing short of a brutal outright murder, gunning an unarmed man down in the back 8 times as he tries to run away. Nothing can justify that. This is as grave a breach of the trust relationship between Police and the Citizenry they are supposed to be serving as I can ever remember. I can only try to imagine what would motivate anyone to do such a thing, let alone a police officer – and the answers i come up with are not good. Even if he grabbed the Cops tazer, the situation changed once he was running away. Brutal. My preliminary opinion is that this dude should fry.
Sharpton et al will NOT be appearing. They only show up when they can push an obviously false narrative. They need to push back so they can point to the rational people and cry racism. When the white folk agree that it’s murder, there’s no conflict, and no money.
Cop #2 who was right there when the weapon drop happened better have told the truth, or he is an accessory.
You know they didn’t. They never do.
If that same scenario plays out but the cop is a civilian the civilian goes to jail. If there ever was a threat to the officer it was running away when he shot him. How about chase him and tase him. The guys car was there how about using that info and track him down. There were any number of ways to resolve that situation other than killing the guy.
Not sure what happened before the video, but this looks like a completely bad shoot. Gather the facts and charge away. My condolensces to the family.
Please know that not all cops are like this. I chased down and arrested a suspect, who was much faster, just a couple of weeks ago. The pepper spray didn’t work but good old fashioned control holds sure did.
If I hear one more person chime that not all cops are bad, im gonna throw up…. Not everyone in jail is a criminal either, Not every inmate in prison is violent,Not everyone pulled over for a DUI is actually impaired, Not everyone handcuffed on the side of the road is arrested.. Not every Judge on the bench follows the rule of law.
You have to understand though that it must be particularly difficult for a (good) cop (like Accur81) to see this and not be worried that they all get tarred because of the HORRIBLE actions of a relatively few bad eggs. Same thing with gun owners. I think it’s harder for US to see a-hole psychos doing stupid criminal sh*t with guns, precisely because we are gun owners, than it is say for a layman or even an ANTI. So I can totally dig where he’s coming from. My local Cops are good dudes. Sure there’s an a-hole or two mixed in, but most of them are almost exactly like us. In fact, they are us. Shoot with us at the range, into the same stuff, etc.
I think cops like Accur81 are more the rarity. I’ve seen too many bad cops. I’ve read too many bad cop accounts.
Would we not be charged with something akin to aiding and abeding if we knew that we worked with someone that broke the law and “kidnapped” people under false witness? Not all cops are bad. But the ones that are….are usually tolerated. That makes them all criminals, even the good ones. How long was this guy employed? (he sure looked ice cold, i shiver when i watch this. All 8 rounds on target? no adrenalin dump, shaking hands? gez) and if he just snapped…. there is no way to defend against cops that snap (when your on the street at least). How do we deal with that?
There’s a small minority that are actually decent people (other than the fact that they’ll lie to protect bad cops), but pretending like this isn’t typical police behavior is just being disingenuous.
Lying to protect, ,doesnt that make the ” Decent People” no longer decent?.. I would rather have a department full of whistleblowers..
That’s why I added that part. They would otherwise be decent, except that they lie to protect the thieves / rapists / murderers amongst their ranks.
+1
“Please know that not all cops are like this.”
We know this. And some of ’em on TTAG. Just sayin’.
As always, thank you, Accur81. We need more like you.
Thanks for that. I’m off to investigate a hit and run.
Stay safe out there. Free society needs you. 🙂
Wow just straight up cold blooded murder right there. Can’t even argue that he was facing him when he drew his weapon… Guy was 5-10 ft away by the time the cop had cleared leather. Then he just calmly reloads and holsters and leisurely strolls over to the body. What a piece of work.
Eight placed on live moving target, cuffed, does not administer first aid and calmly executes a step over. Class act
When I’m in a coffee shop, denied lawful self protection with my gun dismantled and parts locked in separate containers, in my trunk while witnessing a mad man shoot a couple of police, I will walk to the condiment bar, and dress my coffee with a bit of half & half…and then calmly step over the blue crew as that raspy blood bubbly breathing moves through their lungs and relay my first aid bag is in the trunk with my disassemble weapon that may have saved your life. If you don’t bleed out and survive maybe you should have a chat with Ms. Harris. Then execute the step over and go about my business.
This is a natural outcome of viewing all blacks as criminals. It’s an ugly cycle. Unpaid child support does not equal John Dillinger. 60 years ago this cop would not have been charged even with film to show the killing.
35 years ago in WV my local force had a uniformed officer that was warming a bar stool when he should have been serving and protecting. As he left the club to get into his patrol car he thought it would be funny to conduct target practice on a city street at a couple of young black men. He was a lousy shot drunk.
The city defended him and resisted any actions against him until the incident was brought to the feds attention. States rights in full swing.
If the man was armed after the attack and was a danger to others while fleeing, then the shoot would be justified. I was not there and do not know what occurred prior to the video. Based solely on the video view, the shoot was not justified, the man did not appear to be a danger to others. I believe the officer will be spending a long time in prison.
No excuse…bad shoot…bad cop. Enjoy prison. They’re gonna love you there. Oh and thanks for continuing perpetuate the supposed race war with the Police.
So…. if you were CCing and you saw something like this, would you intervene? It sounds crazy, but I mean morally you would be justified. Legally of course you’d go to prison for murder or assaulting an officer. Safety wise you’d probably be as good as dead as soon as you cleared leather. Someone who attacks the police always are.
But if you saw a civilian murdering someone you might intervene, right? Does the fact that the murderer is wearing a badge make it different?
I like to think I would have stepped up and stopped the murderer here. Maybe if someone had given this man first aid instead of cuffing him and letting him bleed out, he might even still be alive. Everyday I step out my door I remind myself I’m ready to meet my maker if need be, and I’m certainly ready to give it all up for a good reason. If I watched a man get murdered in cold blood and did absolutely nothing about it, that would be hard to live with and still consider myself any type of man at all. Thoughts?
If you believed that a jury would agree that you were afraid the cop would shoot you because you were a witness, then yes.
No worries Sammy. You could not get over the fence and stand between them in the time available. Just walk, knowing you have a target on your back unless you bend a knee and submit to officers trolling for revenue.
The storm is coming and no, not rising up against the warrior cop, but the Paris slaughter along with the Canadian Coffee shoot is inbound. And it won’t be the one off, but a collective attack, dividing police forces. That’s when every hi ho F the citizens will come to haunt them. When we say, piss off your on own, go and earn your coin now.
No way that would end up well for you. The system has complete faith in the officer and none for you.
When the two first come into view, they are fighting. The guy only starts to run once the cop draws his gun. There is a case for self defense here. The cop should not have shot once the guy was fleeing but he was in the state of mind to shoot during the fight and never snapped out of it.
This is second degree murder at most and manslaughter at least.
And adulterating the crime scene by moving evidence in what appears to be an effort to corroborate a false justification for the shooting ought to be enough to make that second-degree murder a first-degree murder.
That may be enough to go from manslaughter to murder 2 but I don’t think you can say this was premeditated.
Just a technicality, but SC does not have ‘degrees’ of murder. It’s either murder or it isn’t.
To meet the legal definition of murder in SC, the homicide has to have the element of “malice aforethought.” That’s usually called “premeditation” pop-language.
The thing is, we were SPECIFICALLY taught that “aforethought” can be as short as a second or two. It does not have be a drawn-out pre-planning.
Looks to me like the charge of “murder” is justified. If it goes to trial and the jury does not buy ‘aforethought’ in this case, they can convict of a “Lesser Included Offense.”
After seeing that video a 2nd time, that’s exactly what I was thinking, he’s tampering with a crime scene. This is what makes this video extra damning for the officer. It shows the officer was aware enough that this was going to be judged an unjustified shoot….unless he purposely altered the crime scene evidence. Isn’t don’t touch or move anything, rule #1 involving any crime scene?
Race baiters won’t exploit the unjustifiable killings, just like they didn’t with those two incidents in Ohio.
Yup.
After the NSA shooting, the NSA officers promptly administered First Aid to the men dressed as women. They were not wearing gloves.
The callous step over is telling. The handcuffing is telling. No CPR is telling. Moving the Taser is bad form. Lying is bad form.
Perhaps psyche evals need to be done at the Academy. My FBI friend believes that cops should stop beat work after 8 years. Believing your fellow human beings are not like you breeds an occupying force mentality.
My daughters were pulled over in a rural area late at night speeding. They were on the way to a bachelorette weekend. The officer was the groom’s cousin. He gave them a ticket.
Maybe he hadn’t been invited to the wedding?
“Moving the Taser is bad form. Lying is bad form.”
Moving evidence at a homicide scene…intentionally…goes far beyond ‘bad form.’ I’ve been involved in homicide investigations, and that was viewed as a fire-able offense at the very least.
Lying also goes beyond “bad form.” It is immoral in general, and for a cop..who took an OATH to do his job according to the Constitution (that is, the SPIRIT of the Constitution), lying about evidence and what happened in a homicide is quite specifically immoral.
Ahhh….and there’s the tell. It’s a cops job to lie, deny constitutional protections, skirt every chance to work with law abiding citizens. Give the hi ho FU serve myself and protect my pension. Pick up the taser and shape the narrative.
Watch, stand the F by while some jackass elected legislator, lobbying by police will slip a bill in a stack of proposed laws to prevent citizens from recording police.
A number of cities have already tried that, and been smacked down by the courts. Maybe they should outlaw all cell phones …
“Ahhh….and there’s the tell.”
Not quite sure what you mean or where you are going with that.
“It’s a cops job to lie, deny constitutional protections, skirt every chance to work with law abiding citizens.”
Wrong. Don’t confuse the immoral and illegal actions of cops with “a cop’s job.”
Cops take an oath to uphold the Constitution. Whether or not specific ones follow that oath is a separate question.
“Give the hi ho FU serve myself and protect my pension. Pick up the taser and shape the narrative. “
I have not seen a single current or former LEO, or anyone else for that matter, in this comment section justifying or condoning what that guy did – either the shooting OR the tampering with evidence.
It was wrong (both morally and legally) for him to tamper with evidence. That was my point: it is FAR more serious than “bad form” term suggested by an earlier comment.
I believe the tampering, at least as it looks right now, provides the ‘guilty mind’ component of a murder charge.
This cop got caught, got fired and is being charged with murder. What more could you want in this case?
This cop got caught, got fired and is being charged with murder. What more could you want in this case?
Except for the firing part, he ought to be on unpaid leave until the outcome of the trial, this is all that I’ve ever wanted to see… cops being held to the same standards. That being stated, I also want him to have a fair trial.
I call it murder. If I shot someone in my front yard who was running away, even after he had broken into my house and grabbed a laptop or whatever, I would be charged with murder. The guy was no threat to the officer or anyone else. Looked as if the cop just didn’t feel like chasing the guy, and was pissed that his Taser didn’t work.
Don’t put me on that jury.
Yup, just hard to see it any other way. Regardless of what happened before that. Maybe that explains a little more of WHY he did it, but it doesn’t change the fact that you can’t gun down an unarmed dude running away, especially at that distance. Dude no longer represented any threat, even if he did a few seconds before. If we did that shit, we’d be up on murder 1 charges and so should he.
and of course, that is all based upon the info we have now. Can’t imagine much would change, but never know. Heck, they had Trayvon as an innocent 90 lb 10 year old when they first started that story…
If the guy is running away, unarmed how exactly can you be in fear of your life? That’s the blanket phrase they are all taught to say, I don’t even think they think about it. “I was in fear for my life” The guy was running away, unarmed, putting distance between so “I was in fear for my life”
The unions will go to bat for him, the police will clear, er “investigate” themselves, the DA will play ball and (if he does any time) he will be out (if he even gets convicted) in less than a year….
If policeone.com didn’t close their comments section to members only, we’d all be able to read the vile vitriol shrieking about unjust persecution of a “brother” for a “good shoot”.
Shockingly, the cops don’t want their contempt of the proles to be public knowledge.
To see what to expect, read the ones that were posted with regard to Ferguson:
http://www.businessinsider.com/police-react-to-ferguson-on-policeone-2014-8
“They think that as long as they are unarmed, the officer won’t shoot. So they don’t really have a healthy fear of the police, they expect us to play by the rules and take our lumps.”
Sounds like an invitation for armed citizens to preemptively shoot cops for civilian safety.
Officers have been told for a long time that a suspect getting your taser is grounds for deadly force as if the suspect uses Saud Taser on you it can incapacitate you to the point that they can grab your firearm and use it on you. Dallas had a similar incident a few years ago and that was the justification used to clear the cop (and a justification I agree with). This will end badly for the officer simply because the person was running away.
Don’t want to get shot? Don’t fight a cop and take their Taser. Simple.
Simple except for leaving out the long list of people shot by police with no justification. Also the people that have been shot by police while literally doing exactly as they were instructed. Lets not leave out innocent bystanders that got more service than they were hoping for. This simple plan didn’t work for them.
You probably aren’t going to like what is likely to happen in this nation come warm weather. People are tired of little accountability for officers. I’m only guessing but I don’t foresee a “quiet” summer given recent events.
Don’t want to get shot? Don’t fight a cop and take their Taser. Simple.
IMHO, this is a short sighted and very foolish statement these days. There are conceivable situations to take a Taser from a cop and the cop not be justified in using deadly force. If the cop is abusing his privilege and placing another at unwarranted risk is just one such scenario.
Actually, I think cops should just shoot their guns off whenever they want to and kill all sorts of people and animals at random. After all, there will be reduced crime if enough of the population and animals are killed at random. And those cops will then know that they are going home safe that night. So….yes this was an excellent shooting by the cop, and the unions along with the DA need to bail him out so he can kill off more of the random general population. To serve and protect…..the State.
Looks like murder to me. Many years ago(1970’s) I spent a few days in jail for being behind on child support(300 bucks!-yeah my ex was a real evil b##ch). I lost my job over it and as a result she stopped getting any $. I see no justification for shooting this guy in the back…well except for the “respect my authoratah’ thing.
Show me one single person in the whole counrty that hasn’t fallen behind in their payments in 18 yrs, and ill show you the guy who filled out all their brackets 100% correctly
Another day, another cop horrorshow. This is no Mike Brown scam. This is not an Eric Garner situation gone wrong. This was an execution.
Reform has to come from within. The police need to rethink their purpose and their tactics. Until they do, count on a lot more murder by cop.
Does anybody know what that white string/cord is that extends out from about the bottom of the officer’s gun toward Walter Scott as he starts running away? I could only see it for a second or two on the video.
Could it have been the Taser lines, assuming the Taser had already been deployed at the victim?
Could be. That would add another twist to the story.
Interesting also is that once again a video emerges several days later totally contradicting almost everything stated in the police report. I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZ1yK89imRk
Comming to sc this summer.
Now that some of the details are coming out there are lessons to be learned here:
1. If you dont want to get pulled over, dont drive with a broken tail light.
2. If you dont want to pay child support, wear a jimmy hat
3. If you dont want to get shot in the back, dont fight a cop. Comply.
It’s a bad shoot, but everyone seems to be glossing over the laundry list of bad decisions made by the dead guy to cause him to wind up dead.
If you don’t want to get arrested for murder, don’t shoot someone in the back while they’re running away.
+1
Yee
Exactly.
The point is, the cop is responsible for his bad decision in killing a man that posed no credible threat to him at the precise moment he mag dumped on him.
Just like the dead guy is responsible for all the bad decisions he made that put him in a position to be running from a cop in the first place.
Implying cops should use trumped up reasons (broken tail-light) to chase people.
Moreover, copsuckers are now using facts revealed post-mortem (late child support payments) to justify government murder.
It is absolutely ridiculous.
” Comply.”
The problem with your hypothesis is the number of people shot (and many of them killed) by officers while doing absolutely NOTHING more egregious than sitting in their own home minding their own business when the cops erroneously entered a wrong address (or similar scenario).
Comply? Really? It’s that simple? No It Is Not. Just the other day we had an update on the story of the guy shot numerous times for doing what the officer(s) told him to do. He was “complying” and nearly got killed for doing so.
It’s a Catch-22, friend. You can’t win with the LEO mindset these days. Do nothing? Get shot. Comply? Get shot.
Policing has changed tremendously in the last 10-15 years.
Also, isn’t one only compelled legally to comply with a lawful order? So many seem to jump to comply with the orders of an officer when it is really comply with lawful orders of an officer. One may resist an unlawful order of an officer even up to use of deadly force if warranted.
Let’s not forget a the broken tail-light line is little more than an excuse used by cops to accost people in lieu of any actual reasonable suspicion.
+1
The tide is turning & LEO’s aren’t going to like it when it does.
As a 40-something *white* guy, I might be expected to accept officers at their word.
But I was 20-something not that long ago, and growing up in an all-white town, the police preyed on the young.
I’ve been pulled over for “no license plate light”, only to have the cop admit it was working.
I’ve been in a car pulled over for “weaving” that wasn’t weaving, and heard a cop lie about “smelling alcohol” – when no one in the car had been drinking.
I’ve even had the occasion to see an “officer of the law” perjure himself over a $25 seat-belt ticket.
So no.. I definitely don’t believe everything a cop says anymore, nor do I believe it’s “just a few bad apples”. I believe leo’s are part of an unpredictable and dangerous armed gang. One that can’t be trusted. And I don’t think that because the New York Times told me that, nor because Al Sharpton told me that. I believe it because I’ve seen it with my own eyes.
And I’m an old, fat white guy. I can just imagine what black people go through if even 1% of their stories are true.
This isn’t acceptable in America anymore.
It is still a bad shoot. The tail light is a non-criminal violation and the child support as family law b.s. Much of what happens in family court is b.s. This cop should be up for the death penalty if found guilty. It is way too damn easy for unfit types to become LEO. LEO have to be held to a higher standard during the hiring process and their conduct on the job. The get away with dui and wife/spouse beating way too much.
Would we not be charged with something akin to aiding and abeding if we knew that we worked with someone that broke the law and “kidnapped” people under false witness? Not all cops are bad. But the ones that are….are usually tolerated. That makes them all criminals, even the good ones. How long was this guy employed? (he sure looked ice cold, i shiver when i watch this. All 8 rounds on target? no adrenalin dump, shaking hands? gez) and if he just snapped…. there is no way to defend against cops that snap (when your on the street at least). How do we deal with that?
“appears to be a different kettle of fish”……..really?
The guy IS RUNNING AWAY, PRESENTING ABSOLUTELY NO THREAT WHATSOEVER. HE POSES ABOUT AS MUCH THREAT AS AN INNOCENT BYSTANDER.
dude, I think that’s what he say saying…
That is what he said.
SOP.
Straight up cold blooded murder any way you cut it. Brutal. He should fry
All Cops should have mandatory body cams, and have to operate in pairs.
Well Liberals – You still think only the Police should have guns, because they will come and protect you?
You still in love with the idea of a full blown Police state, where the Police have unlimited power?
Black and White, we’re all in this together. I can only hope this makes people see a little clearer that WE THE PEOPLE cannot be treated as subjects to the crown. The Police should have no more capability to defend themselves than we do. We are all citizens.
I have to wonder about the officer’s work history. Has he been involved in other shootings? Has he received complaints for excessive force? He seems incredibly casual and comfortable shooting a fleeing man in the back.
There is no “warrior cop”, just a blue uniform and a badge corrupted by failed integrity to an oath. All police start out believing for the greater good, reality creeps and then they’re caught in a career of revenue generation. Local jurisdictions provides the tools, legislators make the rules, while judges interpret in favor of deconstructing liberties at an accelerated rate. Nothing more than a industry serving itself under the guise of serving the public using a narrative drilled into our culture that we should respect the law enforcement profession. Sad to report I’ll never give respect, or quarter to a cop ever again. From now on I will view police as stationary or moving objects, ignore them as much as I can, submit like a citizen bitch when directed.
For every LEO, I say you’ve lost me, good citizen, law abiding my entire life, and in your moment of need expect none. Stay in your world, I’ll stay in mine while I’ll teach my children to do likewise.
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