A video supplied to The New York Times, showing the shooting death of 50-year-old Walter Scott at the hands of a South Carolina police officer, appears on first viewing to be the latest example of an unarmed black person killed unnecessarily by a white cop.
But it’s so much more than that. Because three days elapsed between the shooting and the publication of the video of the shooting, the Scott incident became an illuminating case study in the routinized process through which police officers, departments and attorneys frame the use of deadly force by American cops in the most sympathetic possible terms, often claiming fear of the very people they killed. In the days after the shooting, the police version of events — an utterly typical example of the form — was trotted out, only to be sharply contradicted when the video surfaced. In most cases like this, there is no video, no definitive, undisputed record of much of what happened, and thus no way to rebut inaccurate statements by the police.
The first report of the Saturday afternoon incident, from Charleston’s The Post and Courier, followed the usual script: The police department’s story portrayed the victim as behaving dangerously, in this case, purportedly struggling to take an officer’s Taser as part of a violent altercation. Family and friends of the slain black victim mourned his loss and questioned the narrative offered by authorities.
The pro-police spin continued two days later, when a lawyer for Michael Slager, the officer who shot Scott, said Scott “tried to overpower” his client, who “felt threatened and reached for his department-issued firearm and fired his weapon.” Scott’s family and allies could do little more than note that Scott was unarmed, and call for the truth to somehow emerge.
That was before the video of the incident — from a brave soul now identified as 23-year-old Feidin Santana — got into the hands of the Scott family. And in one dramatic instance, a cop’s tale of fearing for his life was replaced with a clear recording of the truth — a truth so damning it appears to have motivated Slager’s lawyer to stop representing the officer (the lawyer has declined to discuss his motivation, but told The Daily Beast, “All I can say is that the same day of the discovery of the video that was disclosed publicly, I withdrew as counsel immediately.”)
“Feared for my life” has become a crutch for law enforcement in cases where an officer has used deadly force, especially deadly force against people of color and particularly when those people are black and unarmed. It conjures the possibility, even the likelihood, of an exoneration, serving as a sort of “Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice” chant whenever there is no deadly weapon in the hands of the person just killed. The officers who shot unarmed Michael Brown in Ferguson last year and unarmed Sean Bell in New York in 2007 famously claimed they feared for their safety, to take just two recent examples. The same could also be said about the two recent tragedies in Ohio, where 22-year-old John Crawford and 12-year-old Tamir Rice, despite appearing as if they were armed with real guns, were never given a real opportunity to put down their BB and airshot guns, respectively. Officers in both cases have claimed they ordered the victim to drop his apparent weapon — but Crawford was shot within one second of contact with police, and Rice within two seconds, according to analyses of footage of the incidents.
One incident in Texas in 2008 that has largely gone under the radar illustrates how hard it is — without video — to litigate against officers who claim to fear for their lives. In the Bellaire, Texas incident, a white police officer shot former minor league baseball player Robbie Tolan, saying he feared Tolan was reaching for a gun. Tolan, who was unarmed, had been suspected of driving a stolen car after an officer incorrectly entered his license plate number. When he was shot, he was in front of his parents’ home protesting how his mother was being treated by responding officers as she and his father tried to explain that the car belonged to the family. Tolan survived, but a police bullet remains lodged in his liver. He filed a federal suit in 2009, and the Supreme Court last year unanimously ruled that a federal appeals court must reconsider a lawsuit by Tolan, which the appeals court had originally declined to consider. (The officer who incorrectly entered his license plate number received an “Officer of the Year” award in 2013.)
Without video, Tolan has been in court for six years and still has no verdict; his federal case resumes in September. And, without video, Walter Scott’s loved ones would have been left with questions haunting them forever. Their accounts of Scott being a calm and controlled individual — “He’s not a violent guy, never seen him argue with anybody, I just can’t see it,” Scott’s cousin Samuel told The Post and Courier — would have had to contend with racist stereotypes and insinuations about his 10 arrests, even though those were described as “mostly for failure to appear for court hearings and to pay child support.”
Though more cameras — body cameras on cops, increased recording of stops by smartphone-wielding citizens — won’t automatically stop some police officers from engaging in racist assault, they provide the best means of countering the stories assumed to be true, that turn out to be false, told by police officers and propped up by the spin machines that stand behind them. In the Scott case, a cop was not lucky enough to sell his dubious story to the public. We should all be thankful for that. But Lord knows how many thousands of police con jobs involving claims of fear before shooting black victims have been pawned off on the citizenry.
This incidence has made the police in Baltimore scared of saying anything about breaking that fellow’s spice lest some video shows up. They will wait for some more time before declaring this to be an accident possibly caused by the victim himself.
Something horrible has been stuck in my mind lately with the announcing of first degree murder charges. The definition of first degree murder actually does not apply and if they pursue it a reasonable jurt would have to acquit if they were read the relevant statues wouldn’t it? Not that juries are ratiinal but this is either second degree murder or manslaughter plus tampering with evidence and lying in an official capacity… but premeditation? The guy used the gun (repeatedly too) because he wasn’t getting his way. That was an incredibly f’d up thing and I hope he goes away for a long time but what if the choice of charges was the prosecutor’s attempt to end-run (or just a really stupid choice)? Either way by going with first degree am I the only person (with some legal background) who sees just how messed up this can go?
Forget racism, even police brutality. This was a drug deal gone bad.
Yes, of course, POLICE dealing/delivering/receiving drugs. Who’d a thunk?
One comment, the toy guns are called “airsoft”, not “airshot”.
Airsoft guns shoot plastic spheres and have orange tipped barrels. BB and pellet guns do not have the orange tip.
if I had the recording, I would have made a copy and then showed the one on cell phone to the district attorney and the police chief. and waited to see what happened to the info. this would have been a good way to see how deep the corruption really went.
Nothing will change until police procedures are yanked out of the 19th century and stripped of the mores of the mutual admiration society that is the “brother-hood”.
The rank and file are a reflection of the impotent, indolent and/or corrupt chain of command. When a cop kills or maims a citizen, put the commanders’ feet to the fire. Go after the bonuses, demote, prosecute, especially when a citizen sues and wins his/her case against a vicious cop.
Get station bosses out of conference rooms, and into meetings supervising their troops. Start firing bosses with high rates of brutal incidents.
Time to subject the police to annual compulsory psychological evaluations and drug testing, including the omnipresent abuse of steroids. Whenever a cop kills or maims a citizen, have them submit to drug tests and psych evaluation immediately following the incident.
Start hiring sociology and psychology grads to interface with community policing units. Eqip the latter with drones; too often misanthropic cops take their time to move in response to an emergency. Furthermore, a hovering drone piloted by an independent unit has the ability to put its cameras at a much closer distance than a citizen with a smartphone. I have little to no faith in body and squad car cameras that get turned off “accidentally”.
Implement periodic compulsory sensitivity training. The old guard may have already lost their humanity, but the younger troops’ lives may depend on it.
Start rooting out machismo intended to bully sane cops to conform with the dominant individuals who favour violence and contempt for the citizens, i.e., their paymasters.
Create an independent unit of judges and prosecutors to investigate incidents of police violence.
From today’s Salon, on the over-use of tasers generally.
http://www.salon.com/2015/04/14/the_walter_scott_outrage_nobody_is_talking_about/
Slager can still claim he “thought” the victim had the Taser. You just watch this guy go free, like ususal
As favorable toward Scott as much of the coverage has been, it is not until I saw http://abcnews.go.com/US/walter-scott-shooting-breaking-witness-video-frame-frame/story?id=30159871 that I really saw just how clear-cut this one was. ABCNews went over that video and spotted the actual connecting wire leading back from Scott’s pant leg to Slager – as he was running away, just a second or two before the shots started. So there’s truly no doubt where that taser was at the time.
Another plot device commonly used by the police after murdering a citizen is that the victim attempted to take the cop’s weapon.
Back in the 70’s the catch phrase was “he was acting like he was on PCP”.
Then it became: “he got combative”.
In 2007 the LAPD (at the Mayday rally at MacArthru park) uttered the words that required NO PROOF: “someone threw a bottle at the police”.
Now the get out of jail words are: “he reached for my weapon”.
Just some of the aces up the sleeves of the cops to justify the shooting of anybody at any time.
When they have no witnesses to corroborate their deadly actions, all they have to do is utter the words: “I feared for my life”, and all is OK. Stacy Koons and Officer Lawrence Powell thought it would work for them (until the video of the beating of Rodney King surfaced).
To my knowledge, no one has dug a bullet out of the inside of Officer Darren Wilson’s police car -which should still be there if in fact a shot was fired inside the car when Michael Brown supposedly tried to grab Wilson’s gun.
Why look for the bullet? Darren Wilson said the magic words.
What is the catchphrase that is used to justify the beating of the (subdued) suspect in California that was (fleeing from the deputies) riding a horse this last week? Was he spitting venom like a cobra?
It always seems all an officer has to do is utter a phrase and the mainstream media gives him a pass after they swallow his words -hook line and sinker.
The latest excuse (defense) that the LAPD uses to defend themselves at civil trials is: “a lot of people have an axe to grind against the police, and/or they are only trying to sue the police because they’ve been arrested”.
Yes this is the reason that it’s so hard to sue the police -because the deck is stacked against the plaintiff.
And the police wonder how they (the plaitiffs) got their attitudes.
For as big as Brown was, there is no way he could have leaned into a Chevy Tahoe with any sort of idea as to what he was reaching for. Not to mention he still had to reach across Darren Wilson.
There’s so many police killings it’s hard to keep track of. Another that just surfaced was the killing of Eric Harris in Tulsa by a sheriff’s deputy who claims he mistook his gun for a taser when he shot a man pinned to the ground by his colleagues.
@Andrew Jones: can you see if Professor Adolph Reed would write a piece on police killings for the Intercept? He’s very careful about polemics, not that your article is polemical, and can bring a lot of valuable context and history that’s being left out in so much of the mainstream chatter.
Sometimes it is absolutely necessary to neutralize the suspect as they are otherwise too slippery for proper justice. Imagine what would have happened if Saudi Terror Inc CEO Osama Bin Laden had been apprehended and brought back instead of being killed right away. Terrorists all over the world would have hijacked planes and demanded his release. Obviously, it was a lot better to say that head-crook was threatening with a Kalashnikov, although surely there is video evidence that he was caught nude in bed and desperately trying to wear his pajamas for welcoming his unannounced guests.
Did the death of so many black people by police make a white family take on police before anything happened to them? Maybe this is the nightmare that police never wanted to think about?
I just heard that there is a video of a family from Idaho ( parents and grown-up adult children and all white people) that got into a fight ( on video) with the police at a walmart. Someone did die.
Did this family decided to attack first as soon as the police showed up? Are people starting to believe their lives are at stake if the police show up— or was this family an anomoly?
You’re barking up the wrong tree if you think it’s racism that incites murders like these. Anglo, hispanic, black, oriental, we’re all the enemy in cops eyes and they’d as soon kill a white man as a black man. Black men are killed more often because they still have some cojones and don’t tolerate being treated like dirt as well as whites as whites or orientals or even hispanics.
More to the point, it’s about powerlessness. Rodney King didn’t get beaten half to death because he was black, he got beaten because he was powerless. And he was powerless mainly because he was black. And because he was working class. Also, If memory serves me, one or two officers were hispanic in the Rodney King beating. —It was about powerlessness.
Here in Canada we had four RCMP officers taser and beat a newly arriving Polish immigrant to death in the Vancouver airport, and then stand around, chatting, with the detachment of slaughter house workers as he lay dead or dying on the floor. When the situation blew up due to a video, head office flew a team of investigators at public expense, to Poland in an attempt to dredge up dirt that would make him not worthy of sympathy and thus powerless, at least to some extent. (They failed. He was clean as a whistle.)
The public in the U.S., Canada and the UK are being played for fools by a very sophisticated and powerful element of government that is largely beyond democratic control.
Police brutality is clearly a case of psychotic misanthropy. Police actions are not limited to Black men. Too many cops exhibit signs of misanthropic psychosis that reflects the cops’ absent humanity regardless of their victims’ race, gender, ethnicity, age, income or class.
What is needed is a compilation of a public, online record of all incidents of police brutality. A record that puts the murderous cop next to his/her victim.
Just as lawyers are held to a higher standard of fiduciary duty, the same should apply to cops.
In reality, the most important thing was NOT the existence of this video, but the lack of awareness of the existence of the video by the ‘authorities’. Because of the special rules for questioning police who kill, and the interests of those who eventually do ask for recorded answers in minimizing the responsibility of the killer, tmielines, actions, and ‘feelings’ are almost always tweaked, actively or unconsciously, to fit a narrative that accounts for all the physical evidence (which is sometimes, itself, ‘tweaked’ to establish that narrative) and places great responsibility on the dead. And the ‘authorities’ are busy making sure that that sort of narrative is seen as plausible, as well as widely circulated. So, if the video had been revealed early on, the ‘tweaks’ would have taken the video into account, but the narrative would still have blamed the victim. But the delay and ignorance meant that the established responsibility transfering narrative was shown to be obviously phony.
The truth is finally out – Mr Scott first ran away, and soon after he was apprehended following a desperate chase he grappled with Law and tried to escape again. This is a lot more than being just an innocent act of driving around with a broken tail light and creating an unsafe driving condition on the road. Right now someone who was doing his best to keep the community safe is doing time.
If that is keeping the community safe, stop wasting your time. Other gangs can do it that well, and quicker.
Mr. Scott was a member of the community. I’m pretty sure as the Officers bullets entered his back from over 100 feet away he did not himself feel particularly safe.
Memorial for Walter Scott Grows 1:15 second video
While in this case it in no way justifies this murder, when will black men learn that when dealing with the police, resisting, struggling and running will never end well?
Gee, getting caught on video back-shooting a citizen isn’t going to go over well with Slager’s KKK buddies.
They probably won’t make him a Grand Krak Kreep now.
I am outraged, we (Americans) should be outraged because this murder is exactly the type of tyranny America isn’t to experience
The BAR Association(s) helped create this un-American experience we suffer through every day. Start holding them accountable and all of its members who don’t uphold The U.S. Constitution!
Whers the ACLU coram nobis? Look no further than the family court and child support system to find the largest number of documented civil rights violations taking place daily. The ACLU is a fucking sham!
There should be no family court system and child support system because it is beyond unconstitutional. Amazingly, the BAR supports it and promotes it to its members? It puts together workshops for attorneys to promote their family law practice etc etc. How can this be? Close to 95% of all cases that go through family court result in an order that favors the mom. I found that number in a study conducted by the Dept. of Health and Human Services. A study I can’t find any longer and can’t remember the name of it. The data used was pulled from 10 states (I can’t remember which ones but I know California declined to participate).
It identified some of the reasons why dads were burdened with so much “child support” debt. It’s not child support its county and lawyer and BAR Association support. Family court system generates more revenue than all other litigated actions combined.
Walter Scott’s death happened because the regulating body (the BAR) failed to regulate the lawyers and judges who created the precedence that every police officer uses today.
I’ll stop there because I’m getting pissed and I will say things I shouldn’t.
In-fucking-believable!!!!!!!!!
Mmm, I can’t figure how you equate police death squads that murder black men with (your) experience and problems as a deadbeat dad.
@cwolf-to you and anyone else who judges this man or any other man who owes any amount of money labeled “child support” as “deadbeat dad(s)” is an idiot! Especially, when the figures are stated in the item you commented on. How many people know that the Dept. of Health and Human Services incentivises county’s to open and maintain child support cases? How many people know how easy it is to open a case and how hard it is to close it? Closing doesn’t happen because there are no procedures for that. So 95% of all cases coming out of a family law court burdens dads with financial obligations that do very little for their kids but due a lot for the system with attorneys fees, court fees, interest on support, matching funds from the Feds, arrest warrants etc etc. It sets a man up to fail.
Walter Scott was set up to fail and it led directly to his death or it contributed.
If the BAR properly regulated those who are mandated to uphold the constitution we wouldn’t be experiencing as you say “police death squads”. The whole family law system wouldn’t exist. Our prison population wouldn’t be the highest on the planet.
It’s not just politicians and piece of shit police officers that kill people, we do as well because we don’t know the full picture. We need to start holding everyone accountable that violates the sacred rights of the individual.
People have to do some digging to understand how fucked up things are. I love The Intercept because it causes me to dig. Well, their work is so good it pisses me off sufficiently to dig.
People, people, people… body cams don’t record cops… they record YOU. Surely there is a better way than creating a lifetime of footage of anyone a cop finds interesting to pluck through about the populace. It’s worse than a database of license plates (which is horrifying, in itself, from a civil rights perspective).
Why wasn’t this outrage expressed in New Mexico btw, with the booyah case of the homeless man? Why is there no centralised place to read and learn? And in that case we had body cams. More surveillance is never the answer. Fixing the problem is.
Just noticed in the photo Walter Scott’s shirt and body are completely clean of blood. If he got shot a few times in the back wouldn’t his whole shirt be soaked?
Not necessarily.
First, exit wounds tend to bleed much more severely than entry wounds. Any exit wounds he may have suffered would have been in the front of his chest, which you cannot see in the video. Also, depending on the bullet design, caliber, and other factors, he may not even have had any exit wounds. The victim looks like a rather large man. There’s plenty of skin, muscle, bone, organs, and other tissues there that could stop a bullet inside of his chest cavity.
Second, bleeding requires a pumping heart. The more quickly the man’s heart shut down, the less bleeding he would experience.
Third, he very well could have bleed extensively internally.
Fourth, he apparently suffered chest wounds (I haven’t looked into this thoroughly, but that seems almost certain from the video). Chest wounds often draw air into the body cavity. As the diaphram contracts, a healthy person pulls air in through his nose into his lungs. Puncture wounds in the chest offer another entry point for air, and that air can fill up the chest cavity – collapsing the lungs. This action can also minimize the amount of external bleeding. Rather than blood flowing out of the wounds, air flows in and out of those same wounds. This also creates a fairly substantial cavity inside the chest which could fill with blood.
“departments and attorneys frame the use of deadly force by American cops in the most sympathetic possible terms, often claiming fear of the very people they killed. ”
That’s because claiming fear for your life or safety is a legal requirement to defend the use deadly force in a court of law. Cops can legally shoot fleeing persons in the back, but they would have to show that they had reason to believe the person would have been an imminent danger to the public if they had been allowed to escape. However, if cop don’t claim that the victim made him fear for his life, then that officer couldn’t, in most cases, plausibly claim that shooting the victim while fleeing was necessary to protect the public. There will never be an incident of a cop killing someone in which the cop does not insist that he feared for his safety. The wording the cops use to make that claim is what they were taught to say in the academy.
Typical sociopathy of the cops. When a person has reason to fear for his life and safety from the cop, the cop claims the opposite was true. It’s like when a cop charges someone with assaulting a police officer, many times it’s because the cop beat the crap out of them and needs a legal excuse for the signs of physical trauma left on the victim.
Case in point- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=je-BEt_eEmg in the video, a cop shamefully assaults a paraplegic man because the man ran over his foot in his wheelchair, then arrested the man to cover his ass.The thing about being paraplegic- you don’t have much control over your motor functions. I used to do work for a large apartment high rise that had some paraplegic tenants in the low income apartments. Pretty much every wall and door in their apartments has holes knocked in them from the paraplegic tenant trying to maneuver their wheelchair around. Given the realities of diminished function caused by the disease, it’s highly improbable that the guy actually intended to run over the cops foot.
One more thing, the only people that firmly believe police abuses aren’t solely based on race is poor white trash. However, no one listens to them because they are equivalent to minorities in our society, and always have been. When I was younger, I knew a guy (we’ll call him “Ron”) that fit the “poor white trash” bill. He had a stolen Camaro in his garage that a buddy had taken for a test ride in Vegas and then decided to just sell it to Ron for weed or something. Since the car was stolen, Ron would just keep it in his garage, but if he drank, he’d drive it around to impress the ladies. He was driving it one friday and the police tried to pull him over so, being white trash, Ron tried to ditch them (nothing is faster than a Camaro to white trash). He couldn’t ditch them, but just wound up leading them right back to his home before he ran into a building. 20 cops swarmed him, ten gave him a beating that was every bit as severe and unneccessary as the Rodney King video while the other ten patrolled the perimeter threatening people with arrest if they looked out their window and shining their flash lights in peoples eyes to try to prevent them from witnessing what was occurring.
Cops will always victimize the lowest economic classes on the societal totem pole, and they’ll be perfectly happy dehumanizing whoever they can to get their sociopathic kicks killing, injuring, and degrading the innocent. Although our criminal justice system is racist, the underlying flaws that perpetuate that racism has nothing to do with race. Make all cops, judges, da’s, and lawyers black and black people would at best experience an only slightly more tolerant criminal system. Develop a legal system that protects a poor man just as much as a rich man and then you’ll solve the problem. However, as long as you believe the root problem is race rather than economics, all you’re doing is blaming the people for the crimes of their government.
Every time I watch the video I thank GOD for Edward Snowden.
Just think what else they had in store for us.
THE fact I want to know about this case is this: suppose we enhance the video and discover that everything is the way we thought it was, except Walter Scott actually does have the taser with him as he runs away. Do the police claim the right to use deadly force on a fleeing suspect because, gosh, he has the officer’s taser and who knows what he might do with it?
That’s a good question, and to be literal about it, that is exactly what Slager initially reported on his shoulder phone. ‘Shot the guy. He took my taser.’ How insane is it that “he took my tazer” would have any bearing at all on making it SOP to shoot — to kill — at a person?
Abolish the Police
Killer cop in South Carolina shooting had history of brutality
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/04/10/poli-a10.html
The original video shows the police officer dropping his taser next to the shot body after the fact..
Not sure what you mean by the “original” video. There is only one video of the shooting and the aftermath. In that video Slager is seen jogging over to retrieve the taser from where he dropped it before he began shooting at a fleeing Scott, and then taking it over to where Scott is and then dropping it there in order to cover his lie about, “He took my taser.”
Even if Scott did have the Taser, a Taser is classified as a non-lethal weapon. In order to justify shooting a fleeing suspect in the back, the officer has to believe the suspect poses a deadly threat to others if he gets away. How can anyone be a deadly threat with a non-lethal weapon? Not to mention, how is it that a 33 year old cop can’t subdue a man almost old enough to be his father without resorting to deadly force?
You’ve seen this footage out of San Bernardino County by now, but the link is still worth posting.
http://www.sfgate.com/news/crime/article/Video-shows-California-deputies-beating-man-6191015.php
On point in this discussion as to how the police commanders react.
Important LEGAL QUESTION to U.S. lawyers, ( among other Attorney Glenn Greenwald if you would kindly voice your educated opinion on the matter asked in an Article?) and U.S. Justice System:
WHAT IF the “Black” dude with the Camera would have actually had a gun in the other hand too, and shot and killed “White” #MichaelSlager – after #MichaelSlager shot #WalterScott – to “SYG” self-defense himself and ##WalterScott?
Since RACIST Caucasian Police officers cold-bloodedly “hunting” and killing unarmed minorities in the U.S.A are rather a commonality, than the exception??
#Ferguson #RFRA #Religionkills > #keepitintheground #divestment #NRA #ALEC #GOP #KKK #BoycottIndiana #Pence #ThrowbackThursday
https://soundcloud.com/alternet-1/longer-clip-1
from anti-lynching campaigner Ida Wells:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14975/14975-h/14975-h.htm
Just to clarify: #religionDoesNotKill but #PeopleKill. From Hitler to Dick Cheney they all killed without any religion.
How were the cops going to explain every single bullet in the guys back?
If the cop has a reasonably intelligent attorney, he’ll get out of this. The story goes:
“He had what I thought was a handgun in his waste band and was headed in the direction of a nearby elementary school” I regretfully had to respond with lethal force”
this concerns a different murder (of Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell) by the (Cleveland) police:
X-rays, diagram detail wounds to Malissa Williams, woman killed by Cleveland police after high-speed chase
http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2013/12/x-rays_diagram_detail_wounds_t.html
it always seemed to me that the glove that didn’t fit o.j. simpson was planted evidence that backfired on the lapd. they overplayed their hand by framing a guilty man.
The cruiser dash cam video clearly shows there was a passenger in the front seat. I am curious that no reports reference this person, or have interviewed them.
There should be more about the passenger and what, if anything he has to say. But I did read a report that he had supposedly recorded the initial contact and that they — quite likely unlawfully — took his cell phone.
Sisters and Brothers,
Make the connections.
see this piece by Glen Ford of the Black Agenda Report:
The War on Black America
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/04/09/the-war-on-black-america/
I think that the other officer should be in jail for accessory. He lied in the report in order to help his partner. He is just as bad. He is nothing!
Concur though not only ‘accessory’. There’s a whole section of law dedicated to this sort of criminality. Personally I would be more satisfied if an officer’s report would be considered legal testimony in and of itself and subject to perjury laws, in general.
from:
Police murder in South Carolina
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/04/09/pers-a09.html
“Just last month, in the 31 days of March, police in the United States killed more people than the UK did in the entire 20th century. In fact, it was twice as many; police in the UK only killed 52 people during that 100 year period.”
I am living in Germany, have many friends in the US and like the Americans as a people. America, together with Russia (who paid the highest price, mind you) have freed Europe of the Nazis. They have become our friends, and have brought humanitarian values back into our constitution. Humanitarian values that were rooted in Europe and its philosophers, but had been forgotten between 1914 and 1945. Thank you for that America!
But I completely fail to understand what has been happening (or surfacing) in the US administrations in the last few decade(s). Why are you ignoring those very values you have brought to us? Why is your administration spying on its own people, and all of your friends abroad? Why have you become so intolerant?
Quo vadis America? It scares me.
BTW; thanks to Manning, Assange and Snowden. They are all heroes!
Hi, Fry.
You write:
All understandable questions and statements. The story of WWII, as it is told to most people, in reality promotes confusion about the past and thus the present. The conventional narrative falsely attributes noble intentions to US and European policymakers, de-emphasizes capitalism and imperialism, and obscures class interests. In essence, the popular beliefs that “America saved the world from Naziism” or “America saved the world from totalitarianism” or that “American intervention in WWII resulted in the triumph of democracy” in fact illustrate the power and ability of the ruling class to control the imaginations and worldviews of the masses. American politicians and propagandists have boasted about the goodness of “America” for so long and so loudly that many people have come to mistake this flattery as truth. Also, understand that a lot of energy is spent maintaining the illusions that US policymakers are men of goodwill, that they are earnest public servants, that they are popular elected in a fair and democratic process and thus have the consent of the masses, that they are legitimate representatives of “the people.” In reality, they serve the ruling class and advance the agenda of the 1%, and are in fact enemies of the 99%. “Humanitarian values” do not originate in the capitals or the pro-establishment intellectual class of the Empires and former-Empires. “Humanitarian values” weren’t forgotten from 1914-1945 or anytime in human history when there was oppression and illegitimate violence by the few against the many, and you’ll realize that if you familiarize yourself with the writings and lives of Left revolutionaries, organizations, movements, and resistance. “America” doesn’t deserve that thanks. Those “values” weren’t exported to Germany from “America”. And constitutions on their own lack teeth. Beautiful words and proclaimed ideals, in order to be fulfilled, have always required class consciousness, mobilization, and class struggle from below.
See: “The Good War?”
http://www.isreview.org/issues/10/good_war.shtml
“Malcolm X Was Right About America”
canadiandimension.com/articles/view/malcolm-x-was-right-about-america
The Rise of German Imperialism and the Phony “Russian Threat”
petras.lahaine.org/?p=2016
The Two Faces of Class Struggle: The Motor Force for Historical Regression or Advance
petras.lahaine.org/?p=1934
See as well:
The Logic behind Mass Spying: Empire and Cyber Imperialism
petras.lahaine.org/?p=1961
The Deeper Meaning of Mass Spying in America
petras.lahaine.org/?p=1943
The Rise of the Police State and the Absence of Mass Opposition
petras.lahaine.org/?p=1904
excerpt from James Petras on the function of the invasive, illegal, massive police-and-surveillance state:
And as Andre Damon wrote recently in the WSWS:
from “The human rights disaster in America” wsws.org/en/articles/2015/02/16/pers-f16.html
thank you for this long entry, very thoughtful.
And I should recommend the writings of Paul Street (check out his blog at paulstreet.org, and his many books, esp his latest, They Rule: The 1% vs Democracy, now out in paperback), Michael Parenti (especially Contrary Notions), and everything by Howard Zinn.
Glenn Greenwald’s columns from Salon, the Guardian, and here, hopefully one day soon to be compiled in a multivolume reader, also explore the purpose, though not explicitly from a Marxist analysis, of the spy state.
For example:
“A prime aim of the growing Surveillance State | As economic anxiety and social unrest increase, control over Internet technology and communication becomes vital ”
http://www.salon.com/2011/08/19/surveillance_13/
Here’s a gem from Zinn:
and see this piece from 1987 by Zinn on the Constitution
http://www.uvm.edu/~dguber/POLS21/articles/zinn.htm
Both Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange are in jail for providing us the video showing the killing of the two Reuters newsmen in Iraq. This Santana fellow is lucky to be free and chirping about his bravery. Also, note that the much vilified New York Times was the first newspaper to publish the video, for which I suppose the Intercept editorial team should demonstrate some appreciation.
Julian is not in jail. Manning is not in jail. Julian is in an Ecuadorian embassy in London and Manning is in a military prison (which has nothing to do with the general criminal justice system).
Of course, metaphorically… that’s a whole different ballgame.
The suspect ran because he wasn’t paying child support. So how can he afford to have a Mercedes?
He had lots and lots of money and a job, that’s how. What’s your point?
“The suspect ran because he wasn’t paying child support. So how can he afford to have a Mercedes?” – John
Well, it’s becoming apparent that not only you, John, but at least one of the founders of The Intercept are falling for the same, false, MO: guilt by disassociation.
This might help you both: It wasn’t his car (It’s not ‘traditional journalism, it’s only a cable comedy show); It was a really old Mercedes (This comedy show’s been on for years); Millions of people own Mercedes (Millions of people watch Jon Stewart/John Oliver); It doesn’t matter what car you drive to your homicide, it’s your homicide (It doesn’t matter which ear hears the facts about the Patriot Act, it still reaches your brain)…Well, you get the (tortured) picture.
When he was in the third grade he used to tie his shoe laces wrong, so obviously he got what he deserved.
The Mercedes was something from the 1990s that he bought a couple of weeks before the shooting (which may have had some influence of the officer’s thinking…) He was behind on child support by $18,000 – so presumably his child support was no piddling amount; the court can set it as high as it wants after all. Possibly he was in good economic times lately because he also got engaged to be married a few weeks ago. I don’t know how much value old fancy cars have because of the maintenance costs.
My guess is he knew that if he got hauled off to jail, whatever job bought him the Mercedes was going away, and he’d be hard pressed to pay the $18000, but otherwise, he’d have a chance. Although since he also didn’t have insurance on that Mercedes, I’m not claiming he had all his priorities ducked in a row…
The aspect no one comments on is the fact that the officer knew there was a witness. That didn’t phase him for an instant. What he didn’t know was that the witness had a camera. But the fact that he wasn’t bothered by a witness watching him murder, then plant evidence is for me even more damning than the murder itself. The writer rightfully points out the SOP of the post-murder cover-up. But what’s horrifying to me is that the officer’s blaise calm shows that murder of black men is itself SOP.
The courts have, on several occasions, chosen to believe an officer’s testimony OVER substantial VIDEO EVIDENCE. It’s even fairly common. And that’s despite pesky neuroscience which says, hey, our brains confabulate vigorously, continuously, and prejudicially.
People of South Carolina…this is who you are.
I’m just waiting for some official to say about this case, “This is not who we are”.
Why just South Carolina?
The South, you see, begins at the Canadian border. Old quote from the 1960s, old story even then.
Police are the only class of the insane, in this case paranoid, constantly in irrational fear of someone out to get them, hearing voices in their head about the person must be holding a gun or knife, etc. where deadly weapons are issued and encouraged.
You can stuff all the arguments for gun-control as long as you will allow a standard where paranoid police can shoot because “the voices in their head” made them afraid for their lives so they had to kill.
Or beat someone already handcuffed to a pulp.
Also drop the stupid “racist” thing. In other states, counties, or cities, Paranoid Police will shoot people regardless of race, color, creed, or orientation.
That level and type of denial is a very large part of why this tragic systemic problem continues to exist, and why so many continue to be killed or brutalized and harassed by police and why justice is so rare and difficult to come by.
Young black men 21 times more likely to be killed by police than their white counterparts
“Federal data of fatal police shootings from 2010 to 2012, reviewed and analyzed by ProPublica, expose in grim numbers that young black men are “21 times more likely to be killed by police than their white counterparts,” or, as the Daily Beast notes, “In order for whites to have been at equal risk over those three years, 185 more—that’s more than one per week—would have had to have been killed.””
No Justice, no peace, no racist police!
Stop Kidding Yourself: The Police Were Created to Control Working Class and Poor People
http://lawcha.org/wordpress/2014/12/29/stop-kidding-police-created-control-working-class-poor-people/
a great piece by Glen Ford:
Obama’s Selma Song: America Is Not Racist – It’s Just Ferguson
http://www.blackagendareport.com/node/4373
Glen Ford totally kicks ass over and over again.
Alternately, black people get shot more often by the police because the police who do the shooting are in neighbourhoods which are historically violent, and incidentally statistically higher in percentage of people of colour. Alternately it happens in places where there are so few people of colour that they are seen as Other, which has shit-all to do with colour at all and everything to do with how we process in-groups (rich, poor… christian jew muslim etc). Lots of Sikhs got beaten up after 9/11 because people thought they were Muslim for example.
Colour is an example OF exception. Colour is NOT THE exception.
Note too that if you only address an example, the problem generally winds up being placed onto a different group of people (race, religion, gender, heritage), and often in an even worse manner. Vilification thrives on what we feed it.
If you see the police questioning anyone, film it. Even if it looks routine and looks like nothing is wrong, film it. Let the police know that they are being watched.
nothing could be clearer than that a mob of cops beat the shit out of Rodney King 20 years ago. Whole thing taped, slam- dunk case. cops exonerated. here we go again.
It’s open season on Black men in Police State America. The cops are able to slither away in almost every case… finally an incident that has clear video. I hope he gets the firing squad. God help America if this time the weasel gets off.
My faith in my country has indeed hit rock bottom. How dare the initial release of the news of the murder was “swept under the carpet”. We have yet another cover up by the local police, (FEAR THEM) if you are a person of color. I have another hero yet to add to Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden. to be an African American and record this horrendous murder and go public is great. Now, we will see if this gets “whitewashed”. Fear the police is the new mantra.
I feel like not enough attention is being paid to the clear evidence of the cop planting evidence on the victim (or rather, the victim’s corpse). Where did he learn to react immediately that way? Is that Standard Operating Procedure? Hold the system accountable.
Yeah, that’s been remarkably glossed over. It was casual, a reflex action. It is absolutely SOP.
Check out this interview with an anonymous deputy sheriff in Florida. I’ll do a quick excerpt but do read the whole thing. He drops bomb after bomb. Even blows up the brass, by name. It’s amazing.
http://dcpost.org/florida-law-officer-planting-evidence-lying-part-of-the-game-exclusive-interview/
Who is the dcpost.org. I did a search for Jeffrey Schultz and another of their ‘authors’ and no history, closest is Jeff Schultz a sports writer.
They have no about page, no privacy page all goes back to home page and no bios. Maybe it is factual and verified – if so why the ghost authors and website?
Any police officer who uses the “feared for my life” excuse for shooting an un-armed person should be dismissed from the force for lacking the courage to be a cop.
Agreed, but is that enough? They’re not above the law so apply the law to them like everyone else – with prison sentences.
If the original crime scene had been properly processed they would probably have found the glass from the tail light the officer knocked out so he could write Mr Scott a ticket for driving a Mercedes while black.
Yep.
Why do you think cops are now yelling “Stop reaching for my gun” or “stop resisting” when they are pounding people ? They know damn well that those words are their get to do whatever I want words. Or even better their get out of trouble card as they are almost never going to need a get out of jail card. They know it also is going to cast doubt on video. Just with this one. The cop yells commands to a dead guy. And lets not also forget the numerous other “heroes” who showed up and not only fabricated the incident of preforming CPR but backed the other cops story. EVEN after one of them watched the other drop a weapon and tamper with the crime scene. These guys have no honor. they care not for the public. all they care about is collecting that sweet sweet $$ and getting to do whatever the hell they want.
Your comment reminds of the Marcus Jeter case in New Jersey. The cop PR is spin is not every cop is bad “See, see, see. Office Phi McCracken gave a homeless man boots.” Roll My Eyes. Most likely the same office beat the hell out of a mentally disturbed person the day before. If the good cops, Habersham et al, are covering for Slagger they are bad cops too.
Amazing how life imitates art, even in home movies, right down to the obligatory planting of a weapon on the dead unarmed victim. True to Hollywood script, the crime had to be solved by someone outside of regular police procedure.
Fantastic article. Body cameras are a must, but the law must be changed. “Fear for my life” is too vague to be law, “felt threatened” is not something that can be proved. Get the body cameras but until the law is changed cops will act with impunity unless the law is changed into something more tangible than “feeling threatened”.
I agree, the “Fear for my life” is entirely too vague. I would also advocate strongly for reform in both gun laws so that there is increased scrutiny of those buying guns and increased accountability. This may reduce the number of guns out there, in turn (hopefully, and perhaps a pipe dream) reduce the gun violent crime rate, thus increasing officers’ sense of safety. Also, I think reforms need to happen in the training of police officers. They aggression with which they are taught to respond puts them in a place of shoot first and ask questions later in crisis times, and works them up to a point that adrenalin is undermining their frontal lobe where good decisions are made. Good training for a soldier in war time, not good for a police officer trying to maintain peace and catch criminals. Think about Tamir Rice, they came in super fast, probably all worked up, filled with adrenaline, and they didn’t have to. They could have stopped tens of yards away, hid behind their vehicle, called in back-up, and engaged him at a distance to determine real threat. He was not an active shooter, and thus no reason to come in “hot.” This seems to be a theme in many police shootings.
You’re right. Officers need better training, but I think real punishments for officers who murder, like with Tamir Rice, not just losing their job, would make them think twice before going in “hot”. Agree that guns should be controlled better. I live in Taiwan where there is a a blanket ban on handguns, my uncles in law have shotguns and crossbows for hunting in the mountains, of course some gangsters carry illegal handguns, and the police also carry guns, but police killings are exceptionally rare because they are not expecting every person they stop for traffic violations to be carrying a deadly weapon. It’s a real shame that gun ownership is so embedded in US culture, it must be something incredibly difficult to change.
A lot of middle aged and elderly white men & women still view the police as noble, truthful, impartial seekers of justice. I think it’s partially a generational thing, and partially generated by wishful thinking & fear (that they are somehow ‘safe’ because of the police).
Even seeing a tape as revealing and blatant as this one, it’s going to be a tough perception to erase.
Hi Froncek –
Astute observations. Your comment is also really timely as there is a related article in The Guardian –
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/09/police-killing-videos-white-black-people-trust
Obviously it is a positive development that Slager has been charged with murder. But is there any possibility that anyone will be charged with – tampering with a crime scene, obstruction of justice, even lying to investigators? Basically will any police officer be served with the kind of charges an ordinary member of the public would be facing had they behaved in the same way?
And as plenty of people have pointed out, the really significant issue about the video is not that it exists, but that without it, there’d be little chance of justice in this case. Given those stakes, I hope the person who took the video is given all the necessary protection he needs until the case is concluded. He certainly deserves it.
Awesome insight. I didnt take it past the murder charge. Yea, obstruction of justice and all. I will be looking for that now.
Honest question: What makes this video THAT much different than the videos of cops killing Garner, Crawford, Rice, Keunang, etc. that Slager is going to be tried for murder? Because to me the substantive difference is that Slager planted the Taser on Scott, which shouldn’t affect one iota whether or not this was a murder, but it sure seems like it was needed to convince people this was a “bad cop” acting maliciously.
Maybe all the others could argue the “feared for their life” – which shouldn’t be a valid defense in court, but sadly is used successfully. I would say this one was more similar to Michael Brown because the suspect was running away and at a distance from which the officer can’t say he felt threatened.
What I want to know is if this murderthug was wearing a camera when he murdered a citizen. If he was, it would be the clearest evidence yet of a criminal conspiracy by the government to use camera technology but only release footage to the public or to lawyers when it’s clearly in their best interest. That’s goddamn fascist, and there is no doubt in my mind that it is indeed happening. It’s only another Machiavellian argument: “the ends justify the means”, “the guy was threatening, so we had to take extreme action to protect society”, “what about the children”, “ooh scary terrorists”, etc. It will only be a matter of time before they slip up and we can properly connect the dots.
The Michael Brown shooting should not be used as a supportive example, the forensic evidence substantiates the police officer’s statement and that Brown was indeed acting dangerously. The issues police abuse of power is undeniable, but we should not lasso in every case to form our protest without due considerations of the facts of each case.
What a load of horse shit. The only reason the forensics backed up the officer’s statements is because the officer never wrote an incident report as required. He basically was given access to the local and states investigations ongoing results. So when he finally gave his interviews to the feds he carefully taylored his statements to the forensics to which he obviously had access to. So in the end everyone in LE can say, “you see, officer Jerk Off was telling the complete truth.” And yes, I did read all of the feds report on the killing of Brown. It is quite a ridiculous report.
And it is quite crazy that people point to its findings without asking the simple and obvious question did Officer Brown and his defense team have access, whether the access was through on going leaks by local or state pd, the officer’s union (who would definitely have access to such info) in which they could be completely armed and ready when it came time to be interviewed by the feds. Officer Brown not once followed procedure when it came to having to document what happened that day. He never wrote a police report, that is why one was never released to the press or the public. One must ask him/herself why is this? Why no written incident report?
Why do cops shoot to kill, repeatedly, instead of shooting to injure or temporarily incapacitate (if absolutely necessary)? Something to ponder since thwy receive training and practice shooting regularly. At a range. Heh.
the reporters spinning the police pr in the beginning should be fired
A few things… 1) I’m so thankful for brave people like Mr. Santana. The machine of the Police State needs to be purged of the bad seeds and get back to serving the people. Having brave souls out there willing to risk themselves to get good evidence is key in doing this. 2) I believe this video probably sums up the events of many police shootings of unarmed minorities. Just my opinion 3) It really does appear that the officer picks up his taser and places near the victim as if trying to frame him further. I don’t think cover-ups are uncommon either. 4) My biggest (multi)-point – it appears to me that there is a big focus on body cameras and holding police officers accountable for their actions. I agree that this is VERY important. I would also argue that there are at minimum three more equally important things to address with these incidents that I do not hear about: FIRST – Gun control. There are so many guns out there that are no with registered owners that can make any community dangerous, let alone to those officers trying make a difference. We need better gun registration, better consequences for those who do not follow gun laws, and it needs to be a more rigorous process to obtain a firearm. SECOND – No one every addresses the training of police officers. I think we need real reform here. They are taught to shoot multiple times in order to kill a suspect the instant they fear for their lives. Tamir Rice was shot within 2 seconds of the Patrol car pulling up. Why didn’t they establish a perimeter? Why didn’t they engage him from a distance? Why isn’t that part of their training? This ensures the officer’s safety, as well as the safety of the person they are engaging. He wasn’t an active shooter, there was no reason to go in so “hot.” There are steps that police officers could take, but are not trained to take, that would ensure their safety as well as others in the area of a response. THIRD – We need to readdress the laws that allow officers to shoot so quickly. Again, I go back to Tamir Rice… he was given 2 seconds to comply… two seconds. He could have been startled by the cruiser pulling up so quickly while being shouted at that delayed his reaction time that much. Should a police officers, hell any citizen, be allowed to take action to ensure their own safety from an attacker? Yes. It still shouldn’t be so simple as stating, “That now dead guy made me feel as if my life was threatened, so I killed him,” and getting off without charge.
I think you have some good thoughts, there Egbert. I think that the one about training police is particularly important. Officers need to be better screened, trained or retrained in how to DE-escalate situations, being in suspects WITHOUT resorting to killing, and in dealing with the mentally ill (in addition to police disproportionately abusing people of color, the mentally ill also seem to be targets).
And this militaristic mindset too many of them seem to have needs to go.
Another aspect of the militarization of police forces within the United States of America is to consider that the United States Government is particularly adept at the formation and implementation of “color revolutions” both internationally and nationally.
For example: “US-Backed ”TechCamp” Color Revolution Revealed By Ukraine Official”
http://www.activistpost.com/2015/04/us-backed-techcamp-color-revolution.html#more
Skin color is a potential dividing point, not a unifying one. False dichotomies such as skin color, religious preference, political affiliation, gender and gender preference; are routinely used on both national and international levels to target and suppress open verbal dissension from economically disadvantaged citizen populations which are held in control by governments hell bent on ensuring maximum abject servitude of those populations.
In order to raise a unified voice against such abject servitude it will be necessary to focus on the unifying factors of all humans regardless of skin color, religious preference, political affiliation, gender or preference, etc and throw down the entire concept of abject subjugation of the bulk of humanity to the whims of the elite 0.01%. In other words, the concept that “We the People” are all being equally targeted in the militarization and hegemony of the US Government represented by a government of thieves in Washington DC consisting of all three branches of the US federal government as dictated by federal statuary law.
Ironically these people have no right to override the Constitution of the United States of America as it is clearly defined in the preamble, and reinforced by some of the Amendments in the Bill of Rights —-which exist collectively as the supreme law of the land; exactly who holds the ultimate reins of the Government.
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
It is “our” government. Not theirs. They have no right to usurp our collective authority.
If only the majority of those in voting age realized this so we could exercise “our” governmental rights and correct this ship.
I do not believe that “voting” will correct the problem.
The elections are rigged and/or bought by various corporate lobbies. Yes…stolen from the “We the People.”
At this time…I believe the only viable solution is a massive peaceful counter-offensive through consistent demands for accounting by “We the People” against the thieves that are holding high Federal Government offices in Washington D.C acting in cooperation with certain other seemingly innocuous world organizations and controlling the United States citizens through the economy as dictated by the Federal Reserve banking system. (See: 1913 Federal Reserve Act and Subsequent Amendment XVI to the Constitution of the United States of America.)
Our government is almost completely broken now. We are the Leaders. Our voice is what is needed.
If the American people assume the roles of victims then they will continue to be victimized.
If, on the other hand, the American People rise to demand what is rightfully theirs they will collectively reclaim a government “Of the People, By the People, and For the People.
With you again Lyra –
We need unity for sure. We’ve been too long divided and conquered.
We’ll get there feline16.
I consciously pray, or meditate, or whatever term one uses for appeal to join forces with higher virtues and/or values within oneself to work miracles on Earth.
Positive affirmations produce positive results; sometimes referred to as a universal law called the Law of Attraction.
The more people that consciously ask for and believe that they will receive a positive outcome for humanity and Planet Earth; the more likely that those wishes will manifest the desired outcome.
That is the power of mind and spirit over matter. It is what those who seek to oppress do not want those who accept their oppression to know.
I personally, refuse to accept the unacceptable and that movement in consciousness is growing stronger both internationally and nationally every day.
Thanks for the comment support both now and in the past but especially for your continued prayers.
Back atchya, Lyra –
And will especially continue prayers for you and all of us. Meditation is good, too – if I settle in to do it :-)
Keep hanging in !
BREAKING youtube
4/09/2015 — Walter L. Scott Jr. Police Shooting Hoax– FAKE ADDRESS + IDENTITY
For a broken tail light…
This is normal. There is nothing novel about this incident.
Reminds me of a story my g-mother told me the last time I saw her in Calvert, Texas. Barely containing her mirth, she described the wrapping of one end of a chain around a black man’s neck, the other to a truck’s trailer hook. You can imagine the rest, but for my g-mother, the best part of the tale was watching him dragged up and down Main Street until he was decapitated. His crime? Being found with a white female.
Nothing much has changed in Tortureland over the last 70 years.
There was nothing abnormal or un-american about those OU frat-boys singing “There will never be a n***** SAE”. That tune has been sung by generations across the the southern states of the US. I watched it sung by Sigma Nu frat-boys attending UT at Austin in 1978 (actually, they were sitting around a beer keg in Wimberly, Texas during a weekend retreat, ostensibly building character among its members). One of my brothers was the president of that nasty little organization — on that day. His name was John Darrell Burnitt, and he promised to murder me. Good thing he’s dead now — one less psychopath to be concerned about.
I wrote these evil fucks off right after the December 2000 coup — which they supported. Then my own torture program was developed and deployed — in London, Austin, San Jose, Sao Paulo, Rio, NYC… everywhere I go. I”m sure there are videos, but they are not in my possession.
Election results, polls, the millions of people murdered by the US, and the long list of undeserving torture subjects prove more than 70% of US’ population is evil; the hatred directed at them is very well earned.
The US is now not only becoming an aggressor and pariah internationally, but increasingly domestically as well. How could a country which not so long ago stood for liberty, individual rights and leadership of the free world so rapidly descend into perpetual illegal warfare, militarized police state and systematic repression of its population?
It never stood for those principles you mentioned at least for last 80 years (ask South Americans, Africans, Koreans, or Middle Eastern) . My knowledge of history before that time is little weak. If you mean that we “say” that we stand for those thing then in this case we still do.
The video is very clear and the police reports are very telling as well:
1) The stop was for “a broken tail light.” Well over 90% of all broken tail or brake lights are of minorities and are completely bogus. Every state’s laws require only one working brake and tail light. BOTH must be out for the stop to be legitimate. Usually this sort of stop is just a blatant form of racial profiling and the officers are on a “fishing expedition” for other unknown offenses. This is also true of most seatbelt stops since only lap belts are actually required by law and it is virtually impossible to see if an occupant has a lap belt on prior to the stop.
2) The video clearly shows that the officer had tasered the suspect, but only had one wire connected. According to the eyewitness the officer had already fired his taser at least once at the man and he was simply trying to run away. BTW — 32 states and counting now consider a taser as “lethal force” because it has killed so many people.
3) When the man reaches the end of the taser’s wire, it is pulled from the officers hand and falls to the ground BEFORE the shots are fired. Immediately after the short the officer called in that the suspect took his taser, knowing that this was untrue. After handcuffing the man, the officer goes back and retrieves the taser and covertly drops it near the body.
4) The officer and his backup never once try to administer first aid or CPR even though they claim to have done so. They stand around talking while the man dies and only check for vital signs a minute and 22 seconds after they handcuff him.
5) The police report is a complete coverup and involved two officers, one of which is still “uninvolved” even though he falsified a police report and failed to attempt to save the victim. Had there not been an eyewitness, this would have been classified as a justified homicide.
6) Bad apples routinely park their cruisers at odd angles these days to avoid having their dash camera record their activities. This was apparently the case here.
7) Increasingly, prosecutors get bad cops off in such situations by “trying” the case in front of a grand jury in which the prosecutor is the judge, prosecutor and defense and no other defense presentation is allowed and no records are kept of the “trial.” This practice is extremely common in South Carolina even though it is illegal and unethical.
Personally, I would like to see Second Degree Murder charges proved against the ex-officer and his backup as well. Any others who participated in the cover-up should be summarily fired and tried if evidence warrants it. A second degree murder conviction would be a death warrant for the officer. The prison system would only have two choices: a) strict solitary confinement. This doesn’t sound that bad, but people who experience extended solitary confinement do not retain their sanity. After 2-3 years, most become incoherent and completely dysfunctional. Or b) put him in the general population. The general population will not allow him to live. Either gangs will kill him for jailhouse “points” or someone who has had experience with a bad cop will kill him, or one of the people he has caught in the past will kill him or hire him killed. But he would have only the slimmest chance of serving out the sentence and coming out alive.
There will be no Grand Jury in this case of Slager because charges have already been brought and Slager has already been arrested. The charge is 1st degree murder. I agree with you that his backup should also be charged, but I don’t know exactly what those charges should be. I also agree with an earlier commenter who noted that may more charges should be brought in regards to the coverup, falsifying police report, tampering with crime scene and so on
This article from RT includes just released dash cam video. Dashcam footage from SC shooting
It’s four minutes long. Includes the stop, a conversation at Scott’s vehicle with Slager, then Slager going back to his police vehicle to check for warrants and whatever the hell. Then while Slager is doing that from inside his vehicle Scott can be seen running away from his parked car and out of view. Slager throws a tantrum and then gives chase, out of view and earshot.
The podcast “Criminal” featured the Robbie Tolan shooting in its most recent episode: http://thisiscriminal.com/episode-18-695bgk/
The only way this could have been more instructive is if the video had come out after the autopsy reports cleared the officer of wrongdoing.
Possibly, in terms of exposure.
In terms of procedure, would it not have put the video at risk of being excluded, or more difficult to be considered as evidence? Also, consider the risk that late disclosure attract innuendo of fabrication etc.
In all: no, I think the witness did well and behaved impeccably, as upright citizens do. I do hope the media will keep an eye on his situation, to make sure he doesn’t come under undue pressure or intimidation of any sort
Knowingly or not Santana was not only acting responsibly (probably got lucky from the looks of that video… lucky being used pyrrhically ironically here… to have been recording it in the first place) but brilliantly by waiting (he said out of fear and I buy that but I would also buy ‘waiting to see what would be said so he could speak up IF they did what they did indeed do’. People generally are hesitant to be witnesses even when or especially when they are the only one Often it is malfeasance that triggers the outrage necessary to go from ‘citizen’ to ‘hero’. Either way, brave
Andrew Jones, a brilliant piece of writing. I admire the completeness on facts; the depth of thinking on issues which the incident raises; and the professional writing, both forensic and concise, dispensing with unnecessary pathos.
Some of your colleagues at TI should read your columns more regularly, and take note. Lol.
Yes, shot in the back three times. A clear case of self-defense, I’m sure it would have been.