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The Walter Scott Outrage Nobody Is Talking about
Salon ^ | April 14, 2015 | Heather Digby Parton

Posted on 04/17/2015 1:43:18 AM PDT by SteveH

The horrific story of the unarmed Walter Scott’s death at the hands of Officer Michael Slager continues to reverberate. Aside from the incontrovertible evidence on the tape that the accused officer shot him in the back as if he were doing target practice, there has since emerged more tape of the traffic stop itself and audio of the officer speaking with his superiors on the phone raising even more questions about his state of mind at the time of the shooting. But as journalists have gone back and studied the officer’s record and found that he was previously investigated for taser abuse. And on even further investigation it was found that this jurisdiction is known as “Taser town”:

Until the eight shots heard ’round the world, cops in North Charleston, South Carolina, were primarily distinguished by their zesty use of Tasers.

As computed by a local newspaper in 2006, cops there used Tasers 201 times in an 18-month period, averaging once every 40 hours in one six-month stretch and disproportionately upon African Americans.

The Charleston Post & Courier did the tally after the death of a mentally ill man named Kip Black, who was tasered six times on one occasion and nine times on another. Black died immediately after the second jolting, though the coroner set the cause of death as cocaine-fueled “excited delirium syndrome.”

It’s important to note that Taser International has spent large sums convincing local coroners that this syndrome (which primarily seems to kill people in police custody) makes it the victim’s responsibility if they have the bad luck to die from being shot full of electricity with a taser.

(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...


TOPICS: Government; News/Current Events; US: South Carolina
KEYWORDS: michaelslager; slager; walterscott

1 posted on 04/17/2015 1:43:18 AM PDT by SteveH
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To: SteveH

Heather Digby Parton is to the left of David Corn, Michael Tomasky and Gary Younge.


2 posted on 04/17/2015 1:52:34 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (You can help: https://donate.tedcruz.org/c/FBTX0095/)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

There’s no reason to Taze, or shoot to kill, a cooperative or non-threatening suspect.


3 posted on 04/17/2015 1:58:42 AM PDT by ConservativeMind ("Humane" = "Don't pen up pets or eat meat, but allow infanticide, abortion, and euthanasia.")
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To: 2ndDivisionVet; MinuteGal

Oh, I see, the cops aren’t supposed to use their guns, and now they aren’t supposed to use their tasers in lieu of guns, and next come the nightsticks. Well, I guess the cops could always just spit at the perps.


4 posted on 04/17/2015 2:00:07 AM PDT by flaglady47 (The useful idiots always go first)
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To: SteveH

It seems like a few years ago many Freepers were unhappy with liberal use of tasers.


5 posted on 04/17/2015 2:00:50 AM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: SteveH

On the first look I thought the piece was about Sir Walter Scott.


6 posted on 04/17/2015 2:03:46 AM PDT by Freelance Warrior (A Russian.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
On the left, Garth Algar. And on the Far, Far Left, Heather "Digby" Parton.

We report, You decide!

WhattaBabe!

7 posted on 04/17/2015 2:04:36 AM PDT by shibumi ("Vampire Outlaw of the Milky Way")
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To: shibumi

Officer Michael Slager is nobody’s friend. If Officer Slager were an ice cream flavor, he’d be pralines and dick.


8 posted on 04/17/2015 2:36:59 AM PDT by Carthego delenda est
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To: flaglady47

The liberals pushed for more “non-lethal” means of stopping a resistive or fleeing, suspect.

The devices do not always stop a resistive or fleeing suspect and sometimes the devices kill a resistive or fleeing suspect.

Liberals never address the lack of respect for authority that THEY created!

This lack of respect is partly why our classrooms are out of control, our college students gang rape drunk girls and our athletes kill people with impunity.


9 posted on 04/17/2015 3:00:29 AM PDT by Erik Latranyi (Hillary is the most qualified candidate to finish the destruction of this nation.)
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To: flaglady47

Yeah that seems to be the game. You’ll notice that the people constantly screeching about cops being too aggressive are always the first to scream that police don’t do enough.


10 posted on 04/17/2015 3:06:24 AM PDT by cripplecreek ("For by wise guidance you can wage your war")
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To: cripplecreek

I haven’t noticed that


11 posted on 04/17/2015 3:12:39 AM PDT by muir_redwoods ("He is a very shallow critic who cannot see an eternal rebel in the heart of a conservative." G.K .C)
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To: cripplecreek

I hear that in Atlanta on the news frequently.


12 posted on 04/17/2015 4:36:39 AM PDT by freeangel ( (free speech is only good until someone else doesn't like it)
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To: SteveH
The Walter Scott Outrage Nobody Is Talking about

Translation: We Think We Can Get More Mileage Out of this Walter Scott Thing and Milk It for a Few More News Cycles

13 posted on 04/17/2015 4:47:02 AM PDT by IronJack
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To: ConservativeMind
There’s no reason to Taze, or shoot to kill, a cooperative or non-threatening suspect.

That can be taken two ways....

1. Cops shouldn't taze those who don't need it.

2. If you don't want to be tazed, don't act up.

The question that begs is what constitutes cooperation or lack of it deserving a tazing? You should be able to call a cop names and not worry about being tazed/beaten/shot. "Dissing" a cop is not grounds for brutality/murder any more than wearing expensive sneakers is.

Some cops have the "hood mentality" and look for reasons to get physical or manufacture the reasons if their mood is surly enough. Cops like that do not belong on the force - they tarnish those who are mature and sane enough to handle the job properly.

14 posted on 04/17/2015 4:49:15 AM PDT by trebb (Where in the the hell has my country gone?)
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To: SteveH

The Salon ape Heather is trying to stir up race riots. The ape needs to be careful because South Carolina has an anti-klan law and uses it to great effect. She could end up in state prison, serving 10 to 30 years.


15 posted on 04/17/2015 5:52:03 AM PDT by sergeantdave
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To: Erik Latranyi
First, Erik Latranyi and Flaglady,
This case has nothing to do with politics whether or not liberal or conservative. This is a case about murder and the unjustifiable use of force.

Walter was a threat to NOBODY! This officer has a history of using his taser as a means of punishment/torture. How can that be condoned by any civilized person. We have courts to decide the punishment of crime breakers, not cops.

I have been unjustifiably arrested because I was carrying a weapon, it didn't mean anything that I had a concealed carry permit and that the officer didn't know I was carrying until I told him.

A good friend of mine was a police chief in a major metropolitan city. This police chief told me that half of all cops are bad. They take bribes, they take sexual favors from women in leiu of tickets and abuse people they arrest. I doubted him when he told me and thought he was jaded or something. Now that I have lived several decades after his telling me that I realize that he was right.

A good cop may go his entire service time of 20 years or more without ever using his weapon or taser. Being a cop is not a license to kill. Bad cops use tasers and guns over and over again. This is about a bad cop not about a liberal press.

16 posted on 04/17/2015 6:36:03 AM PDT by JAKraig (SurelTen Commmandments are not what is referred to as "They my religion is at least as good as yours)
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To: flaglady47

I have an idea. Train the LEOs to use the Croccodile Dundee method; wherewith he would point his arm in the direction of the danger, and with the 2 middle fingers folded under, and the index and little fingers pointing at the target, he would make a low humming sound through his nose and the danger, in the form of anything from a water buffalo to some charging Rottweilers would be stopped in their tracks, mesmerized.
“Mind over matter,” to quote Dundee’s sidekick, Wally Reilly.

Yeah! That’ll work!


17 posted on 04/17/2015 7:30:49 AM PDT by Tucker39 (Welcome to America! Now speak English; and keep to the right....In driving, in Faith, and politics.)
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To: JAKraig

First, you talk about the courts, but convict the officer as abusing his Taser based on hearsay.

Second, if half of all police are crooked, the it is a political problem.....because who controls the police department???? Elected officials.


18 posted on 04/17/2015 8:33:21 AM PDT by Erik Latranyi (Hillary is the most qualified candidate to finish the destruction of this nation.)
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