There are a couple of annoying things about this video. First, it starts with a black screen explaining a bit of what you will see. Then, inexplicably, they start the video and *choose* to deliberately overlay the field of view during the walk-up with a “disturbing content” message. Why overlay the field of view? Theoretically, you might see what the officer and shooting victim were up to at that point. Were they struggling already, as the officer claimed? There is no reason to cover the field of view at this point unless you don’t want the viewers to see what is behind the overlay.
Second, there is an obvious break in the video at 0:16-0:17. It’s *just* before we see the officer draw his gun to shoot. That break seems pretty damn suspicious to me. I am going to listen further to the background noises to see if there is continuity.
Third, when we finally get the officer and shooting victim in sight, two objects are ALREADY in the air. Something happened very quickly to cause two things to go flying. What happened? When did the shooting victim supposedly get tased?
Fourth, at the moment we get the cop in view, notice how the cop’s posture is designed to keep his belt area away from the victim. He’s leaning forward with his hips purposefully thrust back. Then things go flying. Why? Was the shooting victim reaching for something? Was he trying to grab the cop’s gun but only managed to dislodge other equipment? The cop definitely starts the scene in a defensive posture. Something happened directly before that which is not depicted.
SO, again, I am not justifying shooting a man in the back, but there are elements of this video that stink of alteration. Like the Dan Rather memos.
Now, let’s assume that the video was altered. Let’s assume that the shooting victim actually attacked the cop, and there was a struggle where the victim went for the cop’s gun. Not a “broken nose” struggle, but a wrist grabbing, wrestling struggle. Once the victim realized he had failed, he starts to flee. What is the cop’s mindset? 2nd degree murder mindset, or voluntary manslaughter? “Federal law defines voluntary manslaughter as the unlawful killing of a human being without malice [u]pon a sudden quarrel or heat of passion.”
The running away part makes it difficult. Is the quarrel still occurring? Theoretically not, but the heat is still on for the officer.
I would not be surprised to discover two things about this case:
1. We discover that this video has, in fact, been altered to hide a struggle.
2. The cop gets a plea deal for voluntary manslaughter, punishable in SC by 2 to 30 years in prison, with a sentence of 10 years, and is out in 5.
i agree.....there is something not right......put your nomex on, your getting ready to get flamed....LOL
thanks for the well thought out post.....
“Second, there is an obvious break in the video at 0:16-0:17. It’s *just* before we see the officer draw his gun to shoot. That break seems pretty damn suspicious to me. I am going to listen further to the background noises to see if there is continuity.”
I think that you are dreaming. Video of a decent resolution from a known source is a MILLION times harder to modify than a document or even audio in an undetectable manner. I’m not even certain that the technology exists to do it undetectably, period. And you can bet that this will be heavily scrutinized by the leading experts on this planet. Why do it if being caught at it is a certainty (this statement does not apply to the nearly-senile, such as Dan Rather).
If this kid has the talent and technology at his disposal to do this successfully (in an amazingly short time frame, BTW), he is wasting his time, he needs to work for the government for really really big bucks and fix all of Obama’s “mistakes”.
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.
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.