Yes,it was a bit long winded. I use hyperbolic examples on purpose. And the purpose is to demonstrate that until we can wrap a context around what someone did, we cannot make judgements on it.
It’s the difference between first degree cold blooded murder and killing in self defense. And to the unknowing observer they can both look identical.
My long diatribe was a twist on an analogy I’ve used for decades: To a person unaware of current events, germans bombing london looked morally identical to British bombing Berlin.
You need full context to interpret the actions of others. And it’s best to hold off on making “strong” judgements until that context is forthcoming.
“And the purpose is to demonstrate that until we can wrap a context around what someone did, we cannot make judgements on it.”
I beg to differ.
Here are a couple of things that are evident from just watching the video.
Walter Scott was running away from the cop. I guess you could call it running anyway, he wasn’t going fast enough to get very far.
The cop could have run him down, or even just followed him in his cruiser and called in backup.
The cop is supposedly a professional LEO. He’s supposedly trained to make decisions like this. It’s his job.
He shot 8 times and hit the guy what? 5 times.
So I’m not speculating about anything that happened before but just from the video the cop sucks at threat evaluation and to add to that he acted in the extreme.
Maybe he was just POd or maybe he was in a fear frenzy.
Hard to say he didn’t have intent to kill since he fired 8 times.