So familiar. A police officer claims a black man struggled with him for his weapon, and then the officer had to shoot him to protect himself.
Only problem with the story: a passer-by recorded the incident on his cell phone. The reality was that the black man was running away, the officer fired 8 shots into his back, and then threw his taser onto the ground next to him to fake the evidence of a struggle, in full view of his fellow officers. The video is horrific: after shooting the guy, he’s lying on the ground motionless, and Officer Michael Slagger walks over, yells at him to put his hands behind his back, and cuffs him.
He’d been hit 5 times. He was dead. There was no attempt at resuscitation.
The police killed a man in cold blood, and lied about it.
So, so familiar.
The dead man, Walter Scott, had been stopped for a broken tail light.
You know what? Fuck the police. They are disgracefully screwed up.
If this is the same case I heard about on the radio today (these days, how can I be sure?), the cop has actually been charged with murder.
Sorry, should have read the link, the murder charge is right there.
I seriously worry for the person who took the video. I can’t imagine that they’ll be treated with any decency by any of the police in the area ever for the rest of their life.
AHA! So he was no saint, was he?!!!!
While I’m glad there’s a murder charge, similar incidents in other states gives me cause to worry. If the ADA doesn’t throw the case to “make nice” with cops who he’ll have to work with in the future, he may wind up being harassed by them. This happened to an ADA who wants to prosecute some cops for killing a homeless person. Also what about the other cops? They saw what happened and did nothing. Why aren’t they being charged with conspiracy. They’re part of the lie.
Apparently South Carolina actually indicts cops:
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/05/south-carolina-police-indictments
I’m sure this fact will comfort that dead man.
It is, Paul K.
yeah, the institution of policing (in the US among other-but-not-all places) is so fucked up it deserves to be told to fuck off.
Good people who are cops are going to go off about how they don’t deserve to be tarred blah, blah, blah.
Fuck that. I didn’t say *you* are fucked up because *you* are a police officer (though you may very well be, I don’t know).
Policing is fucked up. Some people will try to say that this indictment means the system works.
yeah, and how many black eyewitnesses were ignored in the face of a white officer’s official report in 1950? 1970? 1990? As if this is the first time cops have killed someone who wasn’t a threat… They’ve gotten so complacent about it, they think nothing of lying in the report. How does that happen if policing as an institution hasn’t gone fundamentally wrong?
The cop doesn’t even attempt – not even a hint of an attempt – CPR for Walter Scott. There’s no effort to gauge Scott’s condition. Yell. Kick at Scott’s arms. When the cop is certain Scott isn’t fighting, cuff him. But don’t try to examine whether or not he’s bleeding heavily, or where he was struck, or whether he has a fucking pulse. The fact that he didn’t do that might be down to shock – might – but the 2nd officer on the scene who also gives no shits about whether or not Scott has a pulse says otherwise.
And all this is completely ignoring the fact that other people are around. What happens to those 3 bullets that missed?
This is how cops “protect” us? How is Scott going to pay any child support now?
Fuck this shit. I hate lethal policing.
So nothing has changed, in other words?
The NYTimes article talked about the service the cop gave to the Coast Guard, and every single arrest the victim had. So, yeah. They’re setting up that narrative, hard.
Think the other cops who were there will get charged with aiding and abetting?
Jafafa Hots – true. I should have said now they’re a direct target, instead of one of convenience.
The person with the camera is a real hero. I agree with carlie in #3 – whoever it is is hopefully anonymous to the police or the retribution is going to be ugly as heck.
I haven’t got any words for this crime – what else can we say that this point? It’s utterly monstrous. More anonymous cameras with brave people behind them, more accountability, more pressure to change these corrupt, collapsing systems. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and all that.
Unless you are rich or part of the power structure, the police are not there for your protection, but to keep you in line, and if necessary, kill you.
How is it that police management skates? In every organization, it is management that sets policy, culture, expectations, and are ultimately responsible for the end product. Again, how is it management is not held accountable? Isn’t that why they make the big bucks?
Not that the video leaves much room, but at least the prosecutor appears on the ball this time.
From the article (bold mine):
I guess more of the cops will be in trouble.
If a cop can kill you for a busted taillight, then anyone getting pulled can legitimately fear for their life, and act accordingly. I really fear that this will get much worse:
– Eventually people will start killing cops in self-defense
– The cops will use this as evidence of how dangerous their job is and that they need *more* leeway and power
– The cycle continues.
@ Carlie 3
I’m sure they’ll have more to worry about than just the police. America is not short on its authoritarian assholes who dutifully follow the meta-narrative that racially-charged incidents must be buried for fear of not only increased violence against cops, but rioting and looting throughout communities.
The illusions are too important to allow reality to get in the way, and that footage is way too real. Poor persecuted white people are in danger; if a cop can’t occasionally shoot a black man’s friend or child dead, how will we keep them in their place?
@clarkcox, #15:
Already happened. How do you think we got here?
Burn it down, salt the earth. Every single law enforcement officer or agent, regardless of station or record relieved of duty. Build a new police force from the ground up. Establish firm procedures, make accountability paramount, develop harsh penalties for infractions, and hold everyone in the chain of command responsible for the behavior of the officers under them. I don’t care that it may not be fair to some police. I don’t care that this is a nearly impossible reform. I. Don’t. Care. It needs doing.
Following on from numerobis link I discovered there is no accurate count of police shootings in the USA. What a backwards nation. Although there have been some questionable police shootings in Alberta recently, every police shooting, fatal or not is investigated by ASIRT (Alberta Serious Incident Response Team). A while ago, I was looking at statistics on police shootings in Canada. Not only were the numbers easily available, but there were stats on how many of the people shot were armed and even how they were armed (knife, handgun, long gun etc.).
I suppose the victim’s criminal record may be relevant as a reason for why he ran away, but it is irrelevant to the shooting since it did not make him any more dangerous as he ran away. It is clear that he was “executed” for the high crime of defying a police officer while black.
You don’t perform CPR on somebody who has been shot. It will just make them bleed out faster.
You don’t shoot people who are running away from you. And if you do, you don’t handcuff them and call for back-up–you call for an ambulance and do what you can to stop the bleeding.
More basically, you don’t kill unarmed people for a broken taillight.
@#3, carlie
That’s unfortunately a serious concern.
I can’t wait to hear the Brave Status Quo defenders assert that the cop was justified or that this isn’t an example of racism.
@17:
Unfortunately, I don’t think we’re anywhere near as bad as it’s going to get.
Already seeing it. Saw some comments on a CBC story about it that tried to suggest that perhaps the shooting was justified, as he might have been a danger to others, and the police officer had to stop him to keep some hypothetical others from some sort of hypothetical harm. Also, totally not about racism, and the people that want to talk about that are racists.
I heard about the murder charge against the cop, itself a surprise, before knowing about the videotape. Shades of Rodney King. Of course, other cops have been videotaped using “excessive force” or shooting somebody, and gone free. The BART cop John Mehserle was videotaped by several people shooting Oscar Grant, who was IIRC on the ground face down, and got 2 years for involuntary manslaughter. The cops that beat up Rodney King were acquitted. The situation isn’t good and fixing it isn’t easy. It’s as difficult to remove the people who control the weapons as it is to remove the people who control the wealth, and given that one serves the other…well, there you go. Same old story.
I am 58 years old and I haven’t seen such violent police officers since the 60. This is out of hand but I do believe our police are being militarized and we are screwed.
Eight shots at a fleeing person, at least one of which was lethal. While not a lawyer, and not knowing the “niceties” of SC law, I would surmise 2nd-degree murder is the very best that policeman could hope for; even negligent homicide does not cover it.
I can’t wait to see WHTM letting me know how the manosphere is blaming this on the wimminz (Scott may have run from the traffic stop due to being behind on child support payments).
Another weaponized, armored punk ass afraid of someone running away from him. As Jed Clampett would say, “Pityful, pitiful”.
Crudely Wrott!!!
How are you?
Come back to the Lounge, OK?
Travis @25:
I knew it was only a matter of time.
****
O/T
Crudely Wrott @30:
It is awesome to see you around here again!
OK. Lounge.
FTP.
“Prisons are built with stones of law
Brothels with bricks of religion”–Blake
For every locality __A__, the term “the government of A” names the largest dealer in interpersonal violence in that locality (definition, after Weber).
A law is a threat by a government to kidnap (arrest), assault (subdue), and forcibly infect with HIV (imprison) someone, under some specified circumstances.
Why do so many advocates for an expansive State (e.g., P Z Myers, Sally Kohn) act surprised by the result?
Perhaps a less intrusive State could get by with fewer, smarter cops and college professors?
Malcolm Kirkpatrick
So, now you are actively seeking to be banned here?
Will you get a merit badge?
All of these claims of “struggling with him for his weapon” raises some questions in my mind:
1. How often has an alleged “perp” actually succeeded in gaining control of an officer’s gun?
2. If there are no powder burns on the victim’s body, how can they claim that he was close enough to be struggling with them?
3. Unless forensics show that it was an accidental shot (eg. angle of entrance wounded, etc.), wouldn’t that fact that the officer intentionally pulled the trigger (multiple times!) show that he was sufficiently in control of his gun to negate any claims of a “struggle”?
4. Who the hell would ever go for cop’s gun over something as trivial as a broken tail light / walking in the middle of the street, etc.???
Thanks, MK, for conceding the importance of a State of some kind.
MK, you were already fucking told why your statement about HIV was offensive. Cut that shit out.
Malcolm Kirkpatrick @35:
Take your libertarian-like* apathy and assholishness somewhere else. Maybe stop off at a dictionary somewhere so you fucking well learn what words mean.
Isn’t there a saying about assertions made without evidence?
Jesus fuck, Malcolm Kirkpatrick, your smug libertarianism has worn out its welcome. FUCK OFF.
My prediction: Not guilty – and cash compensation for all the inconvenience.
Good one, PZ.
You banned him because he disagreed with you….
.
.
.
.
.
dammit
I tried to keep a straight face.
Has MK ever been to Sweden? Or outside the US, for that matters?
Last libertarian asshole I had the displeasure to meet broke his femur by driving a motorbike he didn’t have the licence for.
Luckily for him, he was in a state that covers medical expenses.
Anyway. I wonder if this cop will reach Darren Wilson’s 400K$ in donations.
Americans, WTF are you doing!?
I could even understand a police officer shooting – deliberately or accidentily – someone who “tries to get his gun”.
But in this case it is crystal clear that this wasn’t the case. No struggle. No attempt to grab a gun. Just an unarmed man running away and being killed.
There seems to be that wide spread position with the police : “Hey, it is a dangerous black criminal who is running away… I must shoot him. He is obviously a dangerous criminal, because he is black and running away.” But even the police officers know that this is bullshit… why else would the go to the lengths of faking evidence for “necessary self-defense”?
Ahhh, but that’s the beauty of the system: US cops arrest non-white people left right and centre for things so banal that in more civilised countries the result would be a letter that tells you to pay a 20€ fine.
Then when you shoot them they have a loooooooong history of arrests.
The mayor has described this murder as a “…bad decision…” by the cop. That is totally, pathetically inadequate.
At what point did US police officers widely start to believe they were Justice, appointed executioners? When did shooting start to seem like a good enforcement option, rather than a last resort – an evil for the greater good?
This is not really about one cop, but that is the way the story will play out.
Will the department be brave enough to ask how they enabled and nurtured this Bad Apple? Of course not.
I predict that no element of training, monitoring, or oversight will be changed as a result of this. The cop will simply be written off as a criminal.
You call that donations. On my side of the pond, we call it Pizzo
***
As others pointed out, the notion that policemen are mere public servants and not nobility of the sword is still fairly recent and far from being unanimously accepted by everyone.
Malcolm Kirkpatrick @75
The first two, I will grant you, could be loosely defined as such providing you go to great lengths to ignore the moral and legal complexities of the matter. The third one, however… what the fuck is this guy on about?
So far, out of the ones I’ve seen, only one media outlet put a warning next to the video that it contained “graphic content”. None of the others did. I was really glad that I read about it before I saw a video link, because otherwise I would have assumed it was a news story rather than raw footage of the murder itself. There’s a huge discussion on twitter about how that in itself is more evidence of how dehumanized black people are that it was just put up by major media news outlets like it was no big deal (especially after all of the debate surrounding those beheading videos and how many of them refused to show them).
Weird prison-rape fantasies
This is murder in cold blood. I don’t have the words to express the disgust. My sympathies to Scotts friends and family. And to anybody living in a country where policemen are the most dangerous enemy.
From my impression of US prisons (which may very well be wrong) there is an argument to be made for it being an “cruel and unusual punishment”. That being said the obvious solution isn’t less government but rather better government.
As for this shooting I just can’t stop wondering how things can get so fucked up. I really wish that the moments leading up to this shooting was caught on camera, as it is one could always cast doubt about what happened to “justify” this murder.
Contrast with the white man defiantly holding a rifle in public who had several police officers surround him and politely talk him out of doing anything.
Yeah, this cop felt threatened…
Look beyond the rim of your dinnerplate, will you?!?
I’m writing this from a place where the state (only capitalized in French, BTW) is much more expansive than in the US. And yet, the police is almost harmless – certainly if compared to what’s found in the US.
Stop refusing to test your hypotheses against reality.
Another American thing.
Wow a real life Judge Dredd.
No wonder amerkins carry guns!
Erlend Meyer
And what exactly could that be?
Please tell me, which previous interaction would justify shooting an unarmed man who is running away in the back. Repeatedly?
Giliell, #58
Maybe he was a wizard with a nuke.
Wasn’t filming Michael Slagger without his consent a serious violation of privacy rights? Something must be done about this and the person who published the video must be punished adequately.
Giliell: I don’t know, but they will try anything to turn this into a legitimate shooting.
crocodoc @ 60
It is always legal to film the police while they are on duty: https://www.aclu.org/filming-and-photographing-police.
With regard to the “Not all cops are bad!” meme, a friend of mine makes the following point: There are cops who are crooks, there are cops who are bullies, there are cops who are cowards, there are cops who are useless time-servers, but the cops who are not these things are even worse because they allow the crooks, the bullies, the cowards, and the useless time-servers to get away with their crap.
Until and unless they get it through their heads that they are not members of the Policeman Tribe, but their ultimate loyalties are towards the people and the community, and, yes, even the people who may be breaking a law at the moment, it won’t be fixed.
crocodoc, #60
I hope my sarcasm meter is just broken.
carlie @9
re: service in the Coast Guard
You know what’s funny (not funny)? Walter Scott, the man who got shot, also served in the Coast Guard. I found a news article that used his uniform photo and Slager’s mugshot, which was a refreshing change, though a thoroughly depressing one at the same time.
But somehow Scott’s service gets sort of brushed away, like it doesn’t matter…
Anyway, just finished posting a bunch of stuff on this shooting over on Reagan’s Morning. Hope the trolls stay away from this thread.
Also, “@deray: I once asked an elder, “How do we keep the movement alive?” to which the elder replied, “The police will do it for you.””
crocodoc #60
Are you serious? An unarmed man is murdered in cold blood and you’re less worried about that than you are about the killer’s privacy rights?
When recording the police is perfectly legal?
When this is the only way the killer will actually face something that looks even a little bit like justice?
When this could make other killer cops think twice? When this could save lives?
If this is what you are suggesting, if you seriously would sooner see the whistleblower “punished” than the murderer: fuck off.
My read was that crocodoc was being as sarcastic as several others in this thread. The police make that actual argument frequently when they are getting filmed, and it’s so completely ridiculous that even the authoritarians I know don’t buy it.
Re the #WalterScott video notice how the person filming is hiding the fact that they’re filming. We have to #filmthepolice secretly now. People are worried about the person filming all over.
crocodoc
This situation is too new and too raw to post something like that without sarcasm tags.
Nobody charges the officers watching the murder with obstruction of justice?
Is it just me, or is there a seriously MISSING CAR in this video?
So often rightwingnuts blather about being “tough on crime” and “sending a message”. Let’s see them stand up and be tough on this crime. If they’re so much in favour of the death penalty for murder, they should be advocating for execution, to “send a message” to other cops who use excessive force.
While I would hope for a life sentence in this case, I’m afraid that I expect a whitewash, or a manslaughter charge at most. And just as likely, an acquital from an all or mostly white jury.
Kudos to the man who recorded this. I hope he posted it anonymously, otherwise he’s likely to be arrested on false charges, beaten up and “suicided” in the cell. Unlike the old days when cops manufactured “witnesses” and “evidence”, they don’t feel the need to put in the effort anymore. Why construct a false case when you can kill with impunity?
Crip Dyke (#7) –
The claim of “not all cops!” is as annoying and insulting as “not all men!” If “most cops are good”, why do they protect each other and turn and not turn in the ones who commit crimes? Because they “need to trust each other”?
Codswallop. The only trust they should be concerned with is the public trust, the one that they repeatedly violate.
The other cops didn’t ask the killer cop to disarm, place him under arrest, and handcuff him. They did not report the crime. They were accessories after the fact.
The whole barrel is bad apples.
A “citizens monitoring cops” movement would be a good idea. Someone should have a camera on those motherfuckers every second that they’ve crawled out of their hidey-holes.
@ Giliell #58
None, but I don’t think that’s what Erland Meyer is saying. I believe they are saying that some plonker somewhere is bound to attempt to cast doubt on whether or not the cop’s actions were justified by pointing out that the interactions leading up to this moment were not filmed. And that, in order to dispel such predictable authoritarian idiocy, they therefore wish that the interactions leading up to the shooting were caught on camera too.
@ laurentweppe #52
Ah, I see. Malcolm Kirkpatrick has form for that, I assume?
@Marcus Ranum:
Are you white?
Has been going on for decades. How do you think we got the video of Rodney King? Someone was filming a gas station for a student film project and got lucky?
I should think a “citizens monitoring cops” movement would be well-known, given the infamous results.
Margecullen @ 27:
Back in the ’60s, cops were also acutely aware of public relations, and at least pretended to a collective sense of shame. Now, they just don’t give a damn, they are out and about, murdering at will, and for the most part, getting away with it.
I don’t know, Caine.
Do you remember the Chicago Murder Raid I just linked?
@ Thumper #76: Exactly. We don’t have documents of everything that happened from before the victim was pulled over, just wait for some asshole to start fabricating a “plausible” scenario which justifies the shooting. Publishing the victims prior arrests is just the first step.
I’m just waiting for the “innocent until proven guilty” card to be played, which of course only applies to the cop since the victim is already dead.
Marcus Ranum @ 75
Lynchings have been photographed for over a hundred years. It hasn’t done much good yet.
—
Many years ago when I was a child, my mother had a broken tail light. She was driving with my sister and me, at night, unaware of the broken light. The cops pulled her over outside our house and got out of their vehicle with rifles drawn. When my sister–who must have been twelve or thirteen and was extremely short for her age, but much browner than me–tried to walk into the house they aimed the guns at her.
She could have so easily panicked and run. She could have been killed for it. It took me an embarrassingly long time to grasp one reason she’s had to deal with so much shit in this life that I haven’t is because she’s darker in coloring, with features and a body type branded as “ethnic” by white supremacy.
None of this is new. It’s just that white people and those of us with light privilege are seeing it more clearly.
CD @ 80:
Of course I do. I was remembering events which took place where I lived, in SoCal. I’m not saying the cops back then were all lovely, nice people who would never do anything wrong, just that collectively, there seemed to be more awareness of how they appeared to the public. Or, at least how they appeared to the white public. The cops would readily appear shame-faced over trouncing white hippies all over the place, but shooting those black reactionaries? Not so much.
CD
From your link:
How little the rhetoric has changed. :/
I can confirm that the cops and their self-appointed defenders invariably whine about the idea of cops being taped while on the job. One went on and on about how horrible it would be for me to have to work in an environment where I was constantly being taped, and where my internet usage on the job was being watched. I calmly pointed out that I’m under video surveillance for about 80% of my day, and that I am, in fact, subject to having my internet usage evaluated. It would only be done in cases where there was a reason to suspect me of inappropriate usage, and my employer has a fairly generous interpretation of that (no porn or hate sites, basically, but otherwise, so long as you’re getting your job done, social media and what not are perfectly fine). And I am an office clerk. There is literally nothing important about my job beyond making some better paid people more efficient at their own work. So why the hell is it wrong for someone whose job carries the actual possibility of life-and-death decisions to be similarly monitored? He kind of ranted a bit more and wandered off from the discussion after that.
freemage
It’s also a sad fact that by now it is very reasonable to treat everything a cop says as laying until proven by video.
There is some small good news to go with another horrible incident. The mayor of North Charleston is now supporting body cameras for on duty police. If that movement can get some traction it would help. Every single cop needs to be wearing a body camera that can only be turned off by dispatch and every single patrol car needs a dashcam that is always on when the car is out of the lot. These incidents happen far more often than they are caught on camera and as we have seen from multiple cases over the past several years the only way to convict is to have video evidence (and even that isn’t a guarantee).
Thanks to rq in the Morning thread, a picture of Walter Scott in his Coast Guard uniform. To remember every time someone emphasizes the shooter’s service record.
Twitter link Image link
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/09/us/walter-scott-shooting-video-stopped-case-from-being-swept-under-rug-family-says.html
Well, even with the bodycams, they’re trying to pass laws that would forbid the release of (a) the video to the public and (b) the shooting officer’s name to the public. In places. I think Arizona was one of them, apologies, the links are at home. So… yes, bodycams are a good idea, but one must be wary as the People In Blue will be constantly trying to find ways around any law that records their actions. It’s been mentioned before that not just the actual filming, but storage of the data and who gets to see it / access to it is also a major issue that needs to be resolved before one can be certain that bodycams will be entirely in the public interest. [/aside]
This should be unbelieveably monstrous, but this being the modern US police force we are talking about, it is sadly pretty much par for the course. At this juncture, there really isn’t even much of an attempt to hide that these are just outright acts of police murder, with attempts to plant evidence of criminality on the victim being nothing more than an afterthought.
At least this evil arsehole is being charged with murder as he deserves, though I suppose we will now see the state spin machine go into overdrive. I don’t know exactly how they are going to try to claim that this was a justified use of force (on the face of it, there seems no conceivable way anyone could possibly suggest that it was), but I am certain that someone, somewhere will try.
It seems that just being abroad while Black is now reason enough for some cops (and lets be honest, this is not a tiny minority of cops who are doing this; the sitaution is far worse than that) to get their guns out and start blazing away. It is like something from the nastier end of dystopian science fiction.
Cryp Dyke@#78
@Marcus Ranum: Are you white?
Yup. Was my privilege showing? I guess it was… duh. Yeah, that was stupid of me.
Mellow Monkey@#82
Lynchings have been photographed for over a hundred years. It hasn’t done much good yet.
Yeah :( I guess I was thinking in terms of symptoms not root causes. Point taken.
Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden @ 7;
I am quoting your entire post for truth, because this just cannot be said enough. The police don’t protect and serve anyone – it is now undeniable that they represent the primary threat to innocent people, especially if those people are of an insufficiently pasty hue.
Because the Hastert rule applies to the workplace as well: unchecked, the most unwaveringly aggressive people will eventually bully the rest into supporting them.
Let’s say you’re an honest cop disgusted by thuggish bullies unfit to wear any uniform: sure, you may sincerely believe that your crooked colleagues are a blight on law enforcement, but you also know that the first people who’ll dare to openly oppose them will become a martyr to the cause: the emperor may be lacking in the clothing department, but he still can put your head on a pike.
@rq 90
I agree with all of that. The recordings need to be retained, should be made publicly available with some very rare exceptions, and should without exception be available to the court and other oversight bodies.
Here is a video from Scandinavian countries and their police. Officer from LA travels to Finland, Sweden and Norway to compare his work with local officers. It’s kind of funny.
Most of the video’s language is Swedish and text is Finnish but there is segments of spoken English.
http://areena.yle.fi/tv/2199724
I live in Charleston and work in North Charleston not 5 or 6 miles from where this shooting took place. North Charleston like many southern (northern, western, etc..) towns has a long history of racial issues. This article does a fairly good jobb laying out the history of NCHS. http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20150408/PC16/150409421
Mayor Summey, who I vaguely know and know well someone who works closely with him, has been a force for good for the most part here in North Charleston and is generally considered a good mayor by many of the communities he represents, Black and white. I don’t know much about Driggers other than he’s very quiet and as the above article hints, has tried to be a calming force on racial issues. NCHS is roughly 1/2 african-american and has large chucks of extremely poor neighborhoods flanked by industrial areas and new huge factories. Boeing has a giant plant here and is building more, Mercedes is moving in and a few others. Some of this increasing tensions because poorer residents are being left behind.
Unfortunately despite Summey and Driggers community efforts the original narrative immediately following this case was that it was a traffic stop gone wrong and the cop was merely protecting himself from the man he shot during a struggle. They said he was shot in the chest and buttocks. That he only fired once. That the taser was taken from him. That he was shot during a struggle. A familiar story following police shootings across the country. This was carried by the local paper (Post and Courier), the cops, etc.. Had this video not come out we would be in a very different place. Another black man killed by a cop and the story brushed under the rug. A far too common experience in towns across the US and also in North Charleston.
Having said that Mayor Summey and Chief Driggers did act swiftly to have Slager arrested, once the video was released of course. Largely because of this we’ve avoided another Furguson here in the Charleston area. Protests have been calm, the NCHS officials have been strong in their words and actions about the situation, the media has been mostly good at reporting. Again only after and because the video was released. There is also a dash cam video that has not been released.
Any good relations these actions has built rest purely on how this case plays out. Andy Savage, a local well respected former prosecutor has taken on Slager as his client after the original (ambulance chasing) attorney made a big show of dropping Slager after the video came out. Can’t blame him from dropping Slager but the way he did it was about as unprofessional and grand standing as it could get. Savage has a history of taking on hard cases for defendants that no one wants. Everyone deserves a defense but we here all hope that justice is served in this case. If it is not I fear things are going to get nasty here.
If you spend any time reading local stories and the comments on those stories you still see the same racist commentary by people. I’ve seen comments by people whose names I recognize saying things like #dowhitelivesmatter and “When are they going to learn not to run from the cops” and “If he hadn’t run this wouldn’t have happened” And much much much worse. Luckily there has been many comments on social media condemning these people. But the fear is there. Should anything in the case go poorly racial tensions here could explode.
The next thing in my mind is finding out if proper care was delivered by he other cops that showed up. It appears that it was not. If it was not, they should be prosecuted as well.
Now arguing with a moron on FB who insists this isn’t about race “it’s about murder”. It’s about both. Why are people so fucking stupid?
It isn’t about arresting those behind on child support so that they can’t earn any money in jail and can’t pay child support to their kids, all using taxpayers’ monies that the legislature deems so important they must take money away from education and service programs for kids to pay for jailing the parents who can’t pay child support because they are in jail…
…it’s about murder.
It’s not about police getting maintained and promoted without being expected to continually improve their deescalation skills…
…it’s about murder
It’s not about putting more and more weapons on an officer’s belt to the point where any movement near an officer is “going for the officer’s X” where X just happens to be whatever weapon happens to be on the closest side of the officer…
…it’s about murder
It’s not about callous indifference to a man dying in front of someone paid to protect the community who DIDN’T shoot the dying man in the back …
…it’s about murder
It’s not about casually planting evidence in plain view of at least one other officer and who knows how many bystanders/window-gazers and what that implies about the depth of police corruption…
…it’s about murder
it’s not about how multiple cops lied on police reports and got away with it until a video made secretly was released to the public and what that says about the hopes for an accountable police force…
…it’s about murder
it’s also not about how multiple cops lied on police reports and got away with it until a video made secretly was released to the public and what that says about the historical reliability of the reports compiled to show that police have been trustworthy in the past…
…it’s about murder
it’s not about a pattern of contempt for life such that the idea of a man getting away without being handed a ticket for a broken taillight is so infuriating that man must be killed and how NO ONE IN THE NORTH CHARLESTON POLICE DEPARTMENT EVER CAUGHT ANY HINTS OF THAT FUCKING PATTERN…
…it’s about murder
Oh, fuck you: It’s not about murder…
…it’s about making black lives matter
CD, if those are your own words, you need to release that as a poem.
If crocoduck was being sarcastic, they should have clearly labeled the post as such.
If they were being serious, then I agree with faefantasia @67.
****
left0ver1under @73
It’s more complex than that, unfortunately. Here’s one reason why:
‘If you snitch, your career is done’: Former Baltimore cop says he was harassed, labeled a ‘rat’ after attempt to root out police brutality.
Here’s another:
Cop Stops Fellow Cop From Choking a Handcuffed Man, She Was Then Beaten and Fired
@left0ver1under
Yes, my words.
While it’s a blog comment and as such one wishes one could edit it a bit, in this case, the primary edit I would have made if taking it seriously as something more than a blog comment is adding a question mark after each “it’s about murder”.
As far as releasing it: it’s the internet. It’s released.
me@29:
http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2015/04/11/mens-rightsers-discover-the-true-villain-behind-the-police-killing-of-walter-scott-his-ex-wife/
To say something more substantive: from the comments on that link I learn that being behind on child support payments is a great way to go to debtor’s prison and thus lose your job and thus fall further behind and be forever unable to catch up. And that South Carolina is singularly bad at this whole setup, with a shockingly high fraction of its people behind bars being there for child support non-payment.