When A Cop Goes Bad
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By Gary [email protected]
An unarmed black man was gunned down by a white cop after a traffic stop.
Former North Charleston police officer Michael Slager – I say former because he was fired after cops saw the video – is charged with murder.
Dead is 50-year-old Walter L. Scott.
“He has four children; he doesn’t have some type of big violent past or arrest record,” Chris Stewart, a lawyer for Scott’s family told the New York Times. “He had a job; he was engaged. He had back child support and didn’t want to go to jail for back child support.”
The coroner told Stewart that Scott was struck five times — three times in the back, once in the upper buttocks and once in the ear — with at least one bullet entering his heart.
The chilling cellphone video shot by a witness clearly shows Slager attempting to use a Taser on Scott. As the video begins, you can see the Taser wire between the two of them as they are a few feet apart. At that point, Scott turns and tries to flee. Slager draws his weapon and fires eight times as the victim tries to retreat. I couldn’t see the cop being threatened at any point in the video.
Slager then approaches Scott – face down on the ground at least 30 feet away – and handcuffs him behind his back. He returns to the point where the confrontation began and picks something up. He walks back to Scott and drops it beside him. It certainly looks to me like Slager planted his Taser near the victim after the shooting.
In radio traffic during the incident, Slager can be heard saying, “He took my Taser.” Problem is, nothing in the video shows Scott ever in possession of the Taser.
Slager has been charged with murder. I can only hope there is swift, severe justice in this case.
I understand that officers have a tough job and can sometimes feel threatened, but there is no way behavior like can be tolerated or justified. There is absolutely no excuse for it. There is no way to mitigate these circumstances.
Something is just horribly wrong when an unarmed, innocent man winds up dead over a broken tail light and someone must be held to account.
I can’t help but wonder how this would have played out if a witness hadn’t shot that video.
Just hours after the incident – long before they saw the video – here’s what the cops were saying, according to local news reports:
... the dead man fought with an officer over his Taser before deadly force was employed.
... a man ran on foot from the traffic stop and an officer deployed his department-issued Taser in an attempt to stop him.
... an altercation ensued as the men struggled over the device.
... the man gained control of the Taser and attempted to use it against the officer.
... the officer then resorted to his service weapon and shot him, police alleged.
Of course, this is what the officer was telling his superiors. He was the only one on the scene. This was his story. And you know Slager was deeply concerned about his conduct because he went back to grab the Taser and put it near Scott’s body.
Without the video, this is the narrative that would have been pushed until the evidence came out. Evidence that the victim was shot in the back. Evidence that there were no Taser marks on Slager. Evidence that the shots were not fired at point-blank range.
Perhaps we would have got to the truth of this incident, but then again, maybe not.
The NYT pored over news reports since the Michael Brown case in Ferguson, Mo., in August. There have been at least 18 cases in which officers have shot and killed suspects, many of them unarmed and most of them minorities.
So what’s going on here, anyway? I’ve written before about what I perceive to be a troubling trend toward the militarization of police departments in this country. But I have no idea what would cause an officer to shoot an unarmed man in the back as in this case.
I think it might be time for a cops to be required to wear body cameras.
This would likely act as a deterrent to this type of thing. Cost and privacy issues aside, I believe if an officer knows his every move is being recorded, he will be less likely to make a wrong move.
I don’t believe this is a much of a problem in places like Kosciusko County. An officer-involved shooting here is about as rare as an asteroid strike. I also believe our local cops are level-headed and don’t have anything to hide.
But all across America, I think body cameras on cops would go a long way to ease the tensions that are building between police and minorities.[[In-content Ad]]
An unarmed black man was gunned down by a white cop after a traffic stop.
Former North Charleston police officer Michael Slager – I say former because he was fired after cops saw the video – is charged with murder.
Dead is 50-year-old Walter L. Scott.
“He has four children; he doesn’t have some type of big violent past or arrest record,” Chris Stewart, a lawyer for Scott’s family told the New York Times. “He had a job; he was engaged. He had back child support and didn’t want to go to jail for back child support.”
The coroner told Stewart that Scott was struck five times — three times in the back, once in the upper buttocks and once in the ear — with at least one bullet entering his heart.
The chilling cellphone video shot by a witness clearly shows Slager attempting to use a Taser on Scott. As the video begins, you can see the Taser wire between the two of them as they are a few feet apart. At that point, Scott turns and tries to flee. Slager draws his weapon and fires eight times as the victim tries to retreat. I couldn’t see the cop being threatened at any point in the video.
Slager then approaches Scott – face down on the ground at least 30 feet away – and handcuffs him behind his back. He returns to the point where the confrontation began and picks something up. He walks back to Scott and drops it beside him. It certainly looks to me like Slager planted his Taser near the victim after the shooting.
In radio traffic during the incident, Slager can be heard saying, “He took my Taser.” Problem is, nothing in the video shows Scott ever in possession of the Taser.
Slager has been charged with murder. I can only hope there is swift, severe justice in this case.
I understand that officers have a tough job and can sometimes feel threatened, but there is no way behavior like can be tolerated or justified. There is absolutely no excuse for it. There is no way to mitigate these circumstances.
Something is just horribly wrong when an unarmed, innocent man winds up dead over a broken tail light and someone must be held to account.
I can’t help but wonder how this would have played out if a witness hadn’t shot that video.
Just hours after the incident – long before they saw the video – here’s what the cops were saying, according to local news reports:
... the dead man fought with an officer over his Taser before deadly force was employed.
... a man ran on foot from the traffic stop and an officer deployed his department-issued Taser in an attempt to stop him.
... an altercation ensued as the men struggled over the device.
... the man gained control of the Taser and attempted to use it against the officer.
... the officer then resorted to his service weapon and shot him, police alleged.
Of course, this is what the officer was telling his superiors. He was the only one on the scene. This was his story. And you know Slager was deeply concerned about his conduct because he went back to grab the Taser and put it near Scott’s body.
Without the video, this is the narrative that would have been pushed until the evidence came out. Evidence that the victim was shot in the back. Evidence that there were no Taser marks on Slager. Evidence that the shots were not fired at point-blank range.
Perhaps we would have got to the truth of this incident, but then again, maybe not.
The NYT pored over news reports since the Michael Brown case in Ferguson, Mo., in August. There have been at least 18 cases in which officers have shot and killed suspects, many of them unarmed and most of them minorities.
So what’s going on here, anyway? I’ve written before about what I perceive to be a troubling trend toward the militarization of police departments in this country. But I have no idea what would cause an officer to shoot an unarmed man in the back as in this case.
I think it might be time for a cops to be required to wear body cameras.
This would likely act as a deterrent to this type of thing. Cost and privacy issues aside, I believe if an officer knows his every move is being recorded, he will be less likely to make a wrong move.
I don’t believe this is a much of a problem in places like Kosciusko County. An officer-involved shooting here is about as rare as an asteroid strike. I also believe our local cops are level-headed and don’t have anything to hide.
But all across America, I think body cameras on cops would go a long way to ease the tensions that are building between police and minorities.[[In-content Ad]]
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