Posted on 04/09/2015 4:26:02 PM PDT by smokingfrog
Dash cam video of a traffic stop provided the world with another piece of evidence Thursday in a fatal police shooting. It showed no indication of any physical or verbal threats before the driver bolts and the officer chases after him.
The video, released Thursday by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, shows what begins as a seemingly routine stop for a broken tail light. The officer, Michael Slager, approaches the used Mercedes-Benz driven by Walter Lamer Scott, and asks for license and registration. There's a brief exchange, and the officer returns to his cruiser.
Scott then takes off running.
(Excerpt) Read more at aol.com ...
"You would stand there and let someone shoot you?"
He was running before anyone was shooting. He had been on the ground fighting with the cop (according to the man who took the video) and then somehow got away even though he had been tased. Not defending the actions, but would prefer we wait until all evidence is in.
The difficulty becomes developing that justification on the fly. When authorities caught up with the first Boston bomber they attempted to take him into physical custody after a prolonged chase where they were using both explosives and guns. If the police knew they were chasing the Boston Bombers, who they had just engaged in an armed battle, then shooting them while they fled would be legal.
Last year a woman and her son got into an altercation with police in New Mexico. As they fled the traffic stop, one of the police shot at their vehicle. That probably didn't meet that criteria despite some slow speed fisticuffs on the part of a stupid teenager.
So where does that leave this incident? Well there was a fight and supposedly a struggle over a taser. Does that make the suspect a danger to the public? Fighting a police officer definitely rises to another level of criminal, but doesn't mean he will attack other cops or citizens. This fired officer is going to have a tough case. There should be some additional evidence from the taser unit itself. All employments are recorded by the Taser and when the cartridge is fired it shoots out a bunch of little paper discs (chad) so you can tell the approximate location and direction of the shot. The chad also have serial numbers on them.
But fleeing itself is not a felony, and one needs to establish the presence of a felony first.
Read my post above. Deadly force requires more than just a fleeing felony
“This sounds suspiciously like, “if you aren’t doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about” - I’ve heard that somewhere before.”
Don’t run from the cop’s, don’t fight with the cop’s and don’t run again. Is that better?
Agreed. But the guy that took the video said there was a struggle on the ground. And a second witness said that there was a “tussle”. Not sure if that rises to a felony or not. And I didn’t see anywhere where it says if the car the guy was driving in ended up being stolen or what. If it did come up as stolen, the cop might have thought the guy was the thief.
And of course the running back by the cop after he shot and cuffed the guy to get something, and then dropping it by the body is problematic for the cop. If it is found that he was planting evidence, he should be put away for a long long time just for that imho.
Well that is justification for everything that ever happens. Kill them all.
If, as the man who took the video stated, there was a fight on the ground and the man assaulted the officer and tried to take his weapon, (taser or otherwise), the officer could make the case that the standard of "committed a crime involving the infliction or threatened infliction of serious physical harm, deadly force may be used if necessary to prevent escape" had been met.
If you watch the video carefully, the shooting lasted only 2 1/2 seconds and there was a pause before the last shot and the man was clearly still running before the final shot took him down. Have to keep saying this: not defending at this point, just pointing out the law and the facts we know so far. To say this was simply a traffic stop and the man ran so he was shot for back child support is BS. People should be very careful. I remember a number of freepers defending Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown before all the facts were known.
But assault on a Peace Officer is.
b) An offense under Subsection (a)(1) is a Class A misdemeanor, except that the offense is a felony of the third degree if the offense is committed against:
(1) a person the actor knows is a public servant while the public servant is lawfully discharging an official duty, or in retaliation or on account of an exercise of official power or performance of an official duty as a public servant;
Are you really here on Free Republic trying to justify
a cop shooting a man in the back while he is running away?
Really?
You are?
Seriously?
“and incidentally, all of them that have made the news during this fad have been criminals, have they not?”
No... his guy had a tail light out and owed for child support. Neither of those two thing qualify him as a “criminal”.
“Are you really here on Free Republic trying to justify
a cop shooting a man in the back while he is running away?
Really?
You are?
Seriously?”
Not at all but I am pointing out that there’s far more to this. Are you here on Free Republic trying to convict a man without a trial or evidence, it sure seems so.
“Several perfectly valid reasons for moving that taser.”
OK, what are these perfectly valid reasons?
“No... his guy had a tail light out and owed for child support. Neither of those two thing qualify him as a “criminal”.”
What I suspect is a bench warrant for his arrest most likely means he was a no show before a judge which would make him a criminal. Seems he had a few prior to this which makes him a repeat offender.
The fact that the cop has been charged with murder should have an impact on your convoluted justifications of his actions.
I am so sick of watching this. I’ ll bet it’s been on my TV screen at least 30 times. When can I see 9/11 again? Crickets
Also had a previous assault and drug charges.
Again, does not make shooting justified, just making sure all facts are out there.
“What I suspect is a bench warrant for his arrest most likely means he was a no show before a judge which would make him a criminal.”
Wow! A misdemeanor type “criminal”, the worst kind... /s That’s horse manure BTW...
If he tackled the cop, and the cop was running away, I could see assaulting a police officer.
However, being assaulted by a police officer (or being semi-subdued by a police officer) isn’t the same thing.
“...He had not paid his child support...”
-
THEN KILL HIM!
(sarcasm)
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