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.
“When all the facts are gathered together, the charge will be first degree murder.”
That would be some kind of magic. I’d be amazed to see that. Especially since, you know, SC doesn’t actually HAVE a first degree murder. It has “murder.”
So, when all the fact are gathered, the charge will be “murder.” Which... in fact... *is* the charge that was leveled against the officer *already*.
You gotta keep up! ;-)
Really? You don’t hear the obvious audio jump between 0:15 and 0:16? Everything changes.
Maybe I’m just a particularly talented listener, but I predict we hear about the video being altered before this is all over.
Time will tell.
But if these guys want to dance, they have to pay the band. ;-)
(That's an old saying.) lol
In all seriousness, men need to accept responsibility, too.
Maybe so. The police and surely this one officer's lawyer(s) probably are checking the video closely. The man did hold onto it for some time before turning it over to the family, after all, whether his reason was honest or not.
I believe his reason is honest. But, if we've learned anything at all here on FR, it's that sometimes what seems obvious really isn't.
The problem seems to be that I posted a link to a youtube video that was altered with those added messages, blocking our view.
I've been searching for the full raw video, but so far I haven't found it yet. Anyway, that's probably what we all should be looking at.
It’s like the taser... lots of people jumping to conclusions on that one...
Let’s think this through. Are there other plausible explanations? Here’s an analogous one that makes perfect sense to me, with my military background:
A soldier is on patrol in an Iraq city talking to a civilian. Suddenly, the civilian attacks the soldier, reaches for a grenade on his LCE, with a clear intent of getting the grenade. A brief struggle ensues. The soldier is thinking, “Holy shit - he’s reaching for my weapons. I need to shoot him!” The grenade flies onto the ground and the civilian realizes his effort failed and turns to run. Adrenaline is pumping and the soldier immediately enacts his plan of getting his weapon and shooting the attacker as an *immediate* extension of the struggle - there is no delay.
After several shots, the civilian falls. The soldier moves forward to check the guy who is shot. He is still moving, so he zip ties his hands. Then, realizing that the grenade fell on the ground, and thinking that the shooting may draw a crowd, he moves back to the spot where the struggle ensued and collects his gear. Leaving it there, after all, is dangerous, and the soldier has been trained to instinctively keep weapons within arm’s reach if at all possible.
The soldier collects the grenade and brings it forward to where other soldiers are gathering around the civilian who has been shot. Realizing that the grenade is “evidence” that he didn’t just shoot an unarmed civilian in the back, the soldier understands that he can’t just tuck it back into his LCE. He tosses it down on the ground so that it stays out of his possession, but also away from anywhere other civilians might gather.
End scenario.
Here’s what bugs me. If you’ve ever been in a life or death situation, you understand that normal, rational thought takes a back seat. The only people for who it does not are SF operators. Your adrenaline is pumping, your heart rate is up, you are in a bit of a daze, not necessarily thinking trough the consequence of every action. You may do things that are later unexplainable, or that look patently stupid after the fact. I’m not sure this cop was even in a mode yet where he might be thinking about planting evidence. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t.
The thing is, there are perfectly reasonable explanations within the realm of human reaction and experience that make retrieving the taser somewhat understandable.
Again - I think the cop is guilty of something, but I’m thinking voluntary manslaughter.
Dammit, dammit, dammit! You are right. Despite the title of that video saying “raw video,” it’s not.
I did find a copy of the raw video and everything I said is totally irrelevant now. There does not appear to be a break in the raw video I found, nor an overlay.
There are still some questions about what is occurring prior to the cop and victim coming into view, but that’s it.
So, now I feel somewhat stupid. I was taking the word that this was THE “raw” video that was actually provided to the press.
“These guys who want to jump from bed to bed should think things through before unzipping their pants.”
True, but it’s never going to be practical to expect that. It’s human nature that women are the gatekeepers of sexuality, exactly because they suffer the most direct consequences. If women offer men sex without marriage, men are going to take advantage of it, and no law imaginable will ever stop that. So the only option I see viable is to encourage women to start saying no.
Or we can stick with the current system, where the men of loose morals pay a fine, the women bear most of the burden of childrearing, and the children pay the biggest price of growing up in broken homes.
“You shouldn’t get out of your responsibilities to your children just because you didn’t marry their mother.”
Well, child support allows just that. It allows men to walk away from most of their responsibilities as long as they pay their government mandated fines. The only way to actually ensure the men live up to all their responsibilities is to encourage people to get married before having kids, and hopefully to stay married.
That element is missing from all our legal strategies to deal with these issues, so until we address that, we are just treating symptoms instead of the disease.
No big deal. There is raw video available without the messages. The same of which will be used in the trial.
They will be able to determine if the video was altered, edited whatever. And they'll be able to determine nearly the exact time and duration any editing occurred. The video has probably been exhaustively examined multiple times by multiple players already.
Yeah. I was working off the assumption that the video link posted as “raw video” was, in fact, raw video, which it was not.
I’m sorry. :-(
I posted what I found. It was titled, “Raw Video.” I didn’t think it through. But, when you posted about the messages blocking everything, I realized that it must not be raw video.
You caught it. So you were right. There was a break that only you caught. If you hadn’t noticed that break (that I still can’t detect), I oh-so-cluelessly would’ve never given it a second thought. :-0
So, now I hope everyone on this thread hasn’t been basing their opinions on a video that must’ve been edited.
Can you post a link to the actual raw video?
The raw is out there on the Net somewhere. I’ve seen it.
Of course it was edited but I don’t think it was some conspiracy, but was done to highlight some events.
Like the highlighted area where the officer dropped an object down next to the suspect. It made it real easy for most to see. There is also another video I’ve seen on the net with no apparent labeling/editing or altering. The same which will be used in the trial.
Do you have a link to the raw video? I haven’t been able to find it.
Nope. First time I saw it was from some obnoxious news forum or something where the video choked to load and play. My stuff did not like it.
Search the first thread here regarding this incident and you’ll probably find it.
Murdered by the state - it could happen to any of us.
I’m sure many men would agree with that kind of policy, but I don’t think it would work the way you’re hoping. It won’t stop anyone from doing anything because people fool themselves into thinking that they’re safe and that these things only happen to other people, never to them.
When it does happen, under that kind of policy, quite frankly, there’s no reason for a woman to tell a man that she’s having his child if he’s not going to help support the child, unless she wants to marry him or she believes he should be in the child’s life. Otherwise, why even tell him?
It’s a policy that would render fathers obsolete. JMHO.
Women already earn their own income, and female students outnumber the males in most colleges. As it is, many fathers now are trying to be involved in their children’s lives, but the mothers shut them out and have the children calling another man “Daddy.” It would be even worse if child support were stopped.
Thanks!
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