Posted on 04/10/2015 10:12:14 PM PDT by Olog-hai
Dashboard video shows a police officer making a routine traffic stop. Cellphone video shows the officer shooting the fleeing motorist in the back. What remains a mystery is what happened during the minutes in between that led the police officer to become a killer.
The dash cam footage released by state police on Thursday showed North Charleston Officer Michael Thomas Slager pulling over black motorist Walter Scott for a broken brake light last weekend. Slager, who is white, has been charged with murder in Scott’s death. […]
What’s missing is what happens from the time the two men run out of the frame of dashboard video to the time picked up in a bystander’s cellphone video a few hundred yards away. The cellphone footage starts with Scott getting to his feet and running away, then Slager firing eight shots at the man’s back. “It is possible for something to happen in that gap to significantly raise the officer’s perception of risk,” said Seth Stoughton, a former police officer and criminal law professor at the University of South Carolina.
Scott was more than $17,500 behind in child support—more than $18,000 with court fees—and had been in jail three times over the issue. He last paid child support in 2012, court records show, and a bench warrant for his arrest was issued in early 2013. His family has said that he might have run because he was behind on payments again and didn’t want to go back to jail. …
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
Probably just wanting to keep the story alive to pour more gas on the fire.
“Wonder what is making the AP take this tack all of a sudden.”
I was wondering the same thing. I guess the second poster’s remark about pouring more gasoline on the fire must be correct, and this is the only way to do it since the cop was arrested for murder and fired the second the video surfaced. All they can do is pretend there’s some big mystery behind it all.
Scott was stopped in a used Mercedes-Benz he had purchased days earlier.
When the cop tried to plant evidence, he gave up all hope of anyone believing anything he says about what happened.
The murder was caught on tape and the cop was caught trying to put the taser next to the dead guy. Is anyone going to believe anything he says about what happened before he started shooting? Nope.
Look out needle, here we come.
The answer would be to put body cams on all police officers, all the time and the cameras would not have on Off switch.
Still no excuse for a 33 yr old to shoot a 50 yr old while trying to escape vs running him down
This just got more interesting. I wonder if the AP has some info they Re waiting for the perfect time to uh, discover, and report.
Even if the black man was in very good shape, for a 50 year old, and had gotten away, he would have been inevitably picked up on something else and they could have added the running away charge at that point.
I was looking at the picture of the Mercedes. It’s a used car....probably five to six years old...decked out with the ‘rims’. Looks in good condition...I’d take a guess that it’s valued at around $10,000 (my humble guess). He was obviously making some money but you don’t hear anything about his employment situation.
At the time of the shooting , the scene became a "crime scene " ,
and the perp ,the police officer, tainted the "crime scene" by his actions,
and is guilty of altering and obstructing justice .
Still not murder and he is being overcharged.
It is manslaughter and be should have been charged as such.
I disagree. It sure looks to me like a Second Degree Murder charge is warranted. Thus it does not appear to be an "overcharge".
“cop was caught trying to put the taser next to the dead guy.”
have you looked carefully at the video?
do you really think this looks like a taser?
http://imgur.com/gallery/DTYSXXC
This is the same guy who claimed he didn’t have insurance and that he had just bought the car.
IIRC, the dashcam showed the cop going back to his car, probably to run the ID, etc.
Interesting that there happened to be a bystander that took a vid of it.
I hope more info comes out on this.
sure Slager could run him down.
Slager believes Scott has his taser (that was incorrect but he believed it at the time)
So if Slager catches up to Scott, be thinks he’s going to get tazed. then he will be incapacitated, and at risk of serious injury or death.
not to mention Scott could steal his pistol and then have two weapons.
I’ve said before it seems way too small. And why did he pick it up before the investigators got there? “See there it is” although the running back, getting it, dropping it, etc. Is all pretty odd.
The camera guy and another gal do have verbal accounts of the struggle on the ground.
Can't make out what it is.
However, it was dropped with studied nonchalance, having been quickly retrieved from the grass on the far side of the walkway, as he approaches his colleague already engaged with the victim.
sure Slager could run him down.
Slager believes Scott has his taser (that was incorrect but he believed it at the time)
So if Slager catches up to Scott, be thinks he’s going to get tazed. then he will be incapacitated, and at risk of serious injury or death.
not to mention Scott could steal his pistol and then have two weapons.
Do you have a law license? If so, you should sign onto Slager's defense team! They'll need all the help they can get!
Problem is, before opening fire, Slager needed to wait for Scott to return and and attack him with that Taser he didn't have.
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