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 ...
here’s the problem with just letting him go. he’s running toward a pawnshop and other retail businesses. he’s run from a traffic stop, ignored commands to halt, resisted arrest, committed several violent assaults on a police officer, stolen a weapon (at that point Slager believed Scott had his taser)
Scott is getting tired and he’s not running very fast. his decision making is getting reckless and he’s committing increasingly serious crimes.
now he’s headed toward a retail parking lot with people getting in and out of cars. he has a taser so that’s a risk for carjacking. there’s also the pawn shop which probably has lots of guns
letting him go means exposing the public in that retail area to the risk of serious injury or death - which is the Supreme Court standard for use of deadly force.
There is no record of him assaulting a police officer. The cop walked back to his car, the guy ran. That’s on video.
Mr scott didnt have the taser according to the video I’ve seen.
And it appears as though the officer picked up the taser then placed it next to Mr scott as well.
And as a CCW intructor I never teach people to empty their weapon into someone...you double tap center of mass and check your target then double tap again if necessary.
Emptying your weapon turns it into a hammer...not a firearm.
You forgot the other half.
Two to the chest; one to the head.
Anyway you slice it, this was a bad shoot. No way this man need to die. He was not a threat, and the cop just shot (and continued shooting) because???
there are two eyewitnesses to what happened in the park before the video.
one was guy with the camera. they both said they were on the ground wrestling
just before the shooting when Slager tries to deploy his taser, Scott bats it out of his hand and it ends up on the ground behind Slager
Ok.
i’m not an attorney. but Slager’s new lawyer is smart and he will do just fine
if he’s planting evidence he needs fingerprints, just tossing it on the ground doesn’t do that
no Scott did not have the taser. but Slager thought he did. he called it in when he reported “shots fired”, he also said “he grabbed my taser”
And how do you know exacty when the officer called that in?
I have yet to see a timeline posted.
Also what exactly did the officer return to pick up off the ground, and then place next to Mr scott?
“The answer would be to put body cams on all police officers, all the time and the cameras would not have on Off switch.”
Except that criminals are now protesting that the cameras are an intrusion into privacy rights. You can’t have it both ways.
Judging by the trunk lid, it looks like it could be a Mercedes W124 sedan. These were built between 1984 and 1995.
There is a W124 300E on eBay right now with a "buy it now" price of $700!
(W124s were amazing cars, with maintenance requirements to match. I shopped for a used W124 at one time, but fortunately regained some of my sanity before I signed on the dotted line and wrote out the check. I have little doubt that buying a new set of "rims" would be much cheaper than fixing the A/C or the blown head gasket.)
officer call in is on the radio recording
the message “shots fired” starts at 12:25
from what i can see, Slager goes back to retrieve the taser, but when he comes back, it looks to me that he has sunglasses in his right hand, i don’t know where they came from.
but i think, fwiw that what Slager drops beside Scott looks a lot more like sunglasses than a taser
definitely agree with body cams for all officers. they can deter misconduct and also protect officers from bogus accusations.
So the solution is to start launching bullets in the direction of those retail businesses? Take out a shopper with a stray bullet or two?
The shooting was very deliberate. How is it not murder?
So what better way to protect that public than by firing wildly in their direction, trying to hit running man?
letting him go means exposing the public in that retail area to the risk of serious injury or death - which is the Supreme Court standard for use of deadly force.
Sure, try that defense at the trial. Once the jury and judge stop laughing I predict your client will be convicted.
If he wasn't planting evidence then why take the trouble to retrieve it and drop it by the body?
You’re sick in the head. Just like other Freepers who can’t hold in their zeal for public executions.
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