Posted on 04/08/2015 4:02:10 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
The outcry over the death of Walter Scott stems from a video, taken by an anonymous bystander,
that depicts police officer Michael Slager shooting at Scott eight times as he flees. In an interview with Time, however, Scott’s brother says that the video may not have come out if the police hadn’t initially tried to paint Slager as innocent.
Anthony Scott told Time that he found the circumstances surrounding his brother’s death, caused after a routine traffic stop, highly suspicious. “When I got there somebody told me that he was gone. And I was like what in the world? What happened? What happened? How did you get killed in a random stop? It just didn’t make any sense to me.”
Slager initially said that he shot Walter Scott out of fear for his life, claiming that he had taken his stun gun, and police performed CPR immediately on the shooting victim. The video, which Scott said he received at a wake earlier this week, showed otherwise:
“He wanted to see what reports were coming from the North Charleston Police Department because of the fact that they may have told the truth,” Scott said in an phone interview from home with TIME Wednesday. “And when they continued with the lies, he said, ‘I have to come forward.’”
…“I was angry. Shocked,” Scott said. “I said, ‘We have to have that.’ So that we could prove it was innocent.”
Scott credits the bystander and the video with getting Slager charged with murder. “I think that if that man never showed the video we would not be at the point that we’re at right now,” he said. “The video tells the truth. It would not be so hard for us to prove that this man was running away when you get shot in your back. I mean how can you defend that?”
The man who filmed the video has not yet been named.
I noticed the same thing. My initial thought was that the officer must be really bold. He didn't seem to care that the other officer was right there. But your theory seems more plausible.
He still might've planted it, and maybe he was just bold about it. Whatever the case, we'll find out more soon enough.
Correction: I’m not saying what the cop did was “right”
i agree.....there is something not right......put your nomex on, your getting ready to get flamed....LOL
thanks for the well thought out post.....
“Second, there is an obvious break in the video at 0:16-0:17. It’s *just* before we see the officer draw his gun to shoot. That break seems pretty damn suspicious to me. I am going to listen further to the background noises to see if there is continuity.”
I think that you are dreaming. Video of a decent resolution from a known source is a MILLION times harder to modify than a document or even audio in an undetectable manner. I’m not even certain that the technology exists to do it undetectably, period. And you can bet that this will be heavily scrutinized by the leading experts on this planet. Why do it if being caught at it is a certainty (this statement does not apply to the nearly-senile, such as Dan Rather).
If this kid has the talent and technology at his disposal to do this successfully (in an amazingly short time frame, BTW), he is wasting his time, he needs to work for the government for really really big bucks and fix all of Obama’s “mistakes”.
Here is a more plausible scenario regarding the taser:
It was never fired. It was dislodged from his belt in the process of a scuffle (see post 133) and the cop *instinctively* went back to secure potentially dangerous equipment that was simply lying on the ground. My military training would prompt that kind of instinct, for example. Weapons should never be more than an arm’s length away.
Do we know for a fact that the taser was discharged? Or are we just going with unreliable first reports like in Ferguson?
Again - standard disclaimer - I’m not saying what the cop did was right, I’m just saying that it’s hard to predict rational actions in the heat of an irrational moment.
Just go watch the video with your eyes closed for the first 20 seconds. If you don’t hear the obvious audio jump, get your ears checked. If you need an audible clue to latch on to, try and focus on the siren in the background.
Once you have the audio break fixed, watch again with your eyes open. It occurs at the same moment that the video jumps very suddenly.
Something has been cut out.
With the video compressed, expanded, re-compressed / transcoded, and expanded for your viewing (for all we know, with several different technologies), artifacts and jumpiness are certain. As long as the original exists (I’ll bet that it does), any artifacts created by that technology can be explained. It will be darned near impossible to do something undetected.
Oh, and it’s not a clean edit by any means - it’s pretty ham-handed. No talent demonstrated at all.
Oooooor, don’t actually go watch the video again with the information provided and just post reflexively. That seems to work for you.
I see what you mean - at about 0:16 into the video. To me, it looks as if the camera (cellphone or whatever kind it was) shifted upward and around for a moment. That’s just the impression I get, anyway.
“Sorry, but that’s about the craziest thing I’ve heard in months... So are you saying it’s the dead guys fault that the cop “over reacted” ?”
No, it was really crazy for the witnesses in Ferguson claiming (and swearing in court, apparently!) that “he was shot in the back”. Not big fans of CSI, I guess...
“Oooooor, don’t actually go watch the video again with the information provided and just post reflexively. That seems to work for you.”
I don’t always believe my eyes and ears. I’ll leave this to forensic experts, but I still have to say that some entirely new level of idiot would attempt to edit what is certain to be one of the most scrutinized moving images since the Zapruder film and believe that they could get away with it.
That sounds plausible, too. There are more than one possible explanation. What raises everyone’s suspicions is that he dropped it on the ground next to the body. Shooting the man as he’s running away and then dropping something next to the body sure looks suspicious.
If you look you see no cars nearby, so it appears the victim was resisting, and trying to leave the scene. This probably caught the attention of the guy who shot the video, who then followed along to see what happens.
Listen to the audio - it’s not just a shift upwards. If it was, the audio would till have continuity. It loses all continuity.
That is, in fact, a cut in the video. Some segment of video has been removed.
Fair enough. But don’t underestimate the level of idiocy in our society. It’s rampant.
That being said, I’ll bet dollars to donuts the forensics show that the video has clearly been cut. It’s a cellphone video. Any idiot who has ever posted a “vine” can do this kind of simple edit in 10 seconds flat. And if you need further proof of the idiocy in our society, just search “best vines” on youtube. Remember - these are the “best” vines.
actually, That would make it worse for the cop... That would be motive for murder 1.
I listened to the audio. It sounds to me as if it does have continuity. It sounds as if he’s still stepping on leaves as the camera moves around.
When all the facts are gathered together, the charge will be first degree murder.
No - it would make it more likely voluntary manslaughter. Again...
“Federal law defines voluntary manslaughter as the unlawful killing of a human being without malice [u]pon a sudden quarrel or heat of passion.”
State law may differ, but if there was a sudden quarrel, it could easily be argued that the act of drawing and firing was an extension of that quarrel. See post 133. I anticipate that the cop will (wisely) take a plea to voluntary manslaughter with a 10 year sentence, reduced to 5.
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