Again, you are watching ONLY the part of the video that the press has decided to show you. Go to Conservative Treehouse and watch the WHOLE video. The following is the sequence of events:
1. Something is dislodged and falls on the ground during the struggle.
2. The cop shoots Scott.
3. The cop secures/cuffs Scott.
4. Another officer arrives (all happening within seconds).
5. Slager jogs back and retrieves *whatever* fell on the ground.
6. Cop returns to Scott and drops object on the ground near Scott.
7. Two cops are triaging Scott.
8. *Before anyone else arrives*, Slager says something about getting shocked, then reaches down and picks up whatever he threw on the ground and secures it on his person.
If this is an attempt to plant evidence, then it’s a pretty poor attempt. He “plants” the evidence in the presence of a cop, the REMOVES the “planted” evidence in the presence of the SAME cop before any one else arrives and secures it on his person.
We can argue all we want about touching anything, but the cop was in an excited state due to a foot pursuit, struggle, and shooting. For all I know, he retrieved the object because he thought he shouldn’t leave a dangerous thing lying around, then realized that it was still just “lying there” next to the body and tucked it away.
Have you ever been physically assaulted? I have been. In college, a drunk guy tried to hit me in the head with a baseball bat because he thought I was attacking his roommate. (The roommate and I were wrestling, laughing, with others standing around, and even taking breaks to remove glasses and catch our breath.) Luckily, the guy was drunk, so I was able to take the bat away. A fight ensued, during which I kicked the crap out of the guy that attacked me. I don’t think he landed any blows. Because there was a fight, I was arrested. As I stood in front of the judge, he ludicrously asked me, “After you got the bat away, why didn’t you run?”
Uh... because I was actively engaged in melee... heat of the moment... *I had just been attacked by a guy with a baseball bat.*
Your perspective changes radically in the moment. I am not prepared to judge this cop’s perspective from the safety of FreeRepublic with small, edited snippets of a video that don’t tell the whole story.
Have we learned nothing from Martin and Brown?
The video I saw shows the cop throwing the taser behind him. Then going back and picking it up.
Triage? Triage is what you do when you have multiple victims, as as way of prioritizing resources. Standing over a single victim and doing little more than looking at the bullet holes is not triage.
Have we learned nothing from Martin and Brown?
Have we learned nothing from Ruby Ridge and Waco?