Posted on 04/14/2015 8:51:14 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Regular readers of these columns [1] know that I often use this space to explain and defend the actions of police officers who I feel have been unfairly vilified after being involved in some controversial incident. In the case of Michael Slager, the now-former North Charleston police officer accused of murder in the shooting death of Walter Scott, I can offer no defense, for it is abundantly clear that in firing at a fleeing, unarmed man he broke the law. So the question is not whether Slager was right or wrong, but rather how wrong he was.
I have been a cop for more than 30 years, the better part of that time working in some of Los Angeless most crime-ridden neighborhoods. Though Ive never fired my weapon at anyone, Ive come within a split second of doing so on a number of occasions. Ive been shot at twice, both times mercifully without effect. Ive chased dozens of people down streets and alleys and over fences and from backyard to backyard, and Ive been involved in altercations in which men tried to take my gun. Unlike many people you have heard opine on the Walter Scott shooting, I have been in Michael Slagers shoes. He made a series of poor decisions, the most consequential of course being his decision to open fire on Scott, but I am not convinced he is a cold-blooded killer.
Consider: if Slager had been looking for an excuse to kill Scott (or anyone), if he had formed the malicious intent to shoot him in the back and then justify it by placing his Taser near the body, why did he wait until he had chased the man for more than the length of two football fields before doing so?
A more likely explanation for the shooting is that Slager was unprepared — mentally or physically — for an encounter with a resisting individual. When that encounter came, he panicked and fired out of mistaken but not altogether unreasonable fear that he would be harmed if he did not. And then he panicked further and compounded his mistake by handling and moving evidence that might have bolstered whatever slim claim to justification he might have had.
Before getting to the shooting itself, lets examine the circumstances that preceded it and how Slager might have avoided the tragic outcome. As the dash-cam from Slagers police car [2] shows, the incident began with a traffic stop for the most minor of offenses: a defective brake light, in this case the one mounted in the cars rear window. The video clearly shows the light isnt working, so this is not a case of a police officer manufacturing a reason for a stop. If the violation seems trivial to you, keep in mind that stops for minor offenses can and often do uncover far more serious lawbreaking.
But in watching the video we can see that as Slager speaks with Scott, there is no indication that he has any suspicions about him, even as Scott gives varying accounts as to who owns the car he is driving. Scott at first says he has just bought it, then later says he is preparing to do so. In any event, he does not produce the registration and insurance papers he is required by law to possess. Slager makes no issue of this, but he takes Scotts drivers license back to his car, presumably to verify via the cars computer that the license is valid and to check Scott for outstanding warrants.
And Scott did have a warrant [3] for the relatively minor offense of failing to pay child support; he was more than $18,000 behind on his payments on the day he was killed. But we dont know if Slager had discovered the warrant at the time Scott broke from his car and ran down the street. When someone flees from a routine stop, an officer is presented with a series of choices, choices that are complicated when the officer is working alone as Slager was. Assume that Slager had discovered the outstanding warrant. I submit it was an unwise choice to give chase as he did, especially with a passenger still in Scotts car who had been neither identified nor searched. Had that passenger been armed and so inclined, he could have shot Slager in the back as the officer ran past. And given the minor nature of the charge on the warrant, and the fact that Slager had Scotts drivers license, wouldnt it have been preferable to let Scott get away for the time being and pick him up later? It certainly would have been preferable to what actually occurred.
But if Slager was determined to pursue, why didnt he stay in his car and drive after Scott for as long as possible, thus saving his wind for the altercation that almost always occurs at the end of a foot pursuit? Slager could have driven into the lot where the shooting occurred, headed Scott off, and been better able to wrestle with a man who had run the same distance. And by leaving his car in the parking lot, presumably with the keys in it and running, Slager ran the risk that someone would steal it (yes [4], it happens [5]).
And even if Slager was right to pursue Scott on foot, it would have been wiser to keep him in sight but at a distance while waiting for backup to arrive. As can be heard from the siren in the opening moments of the shooting video [6], help was near. Why not wait those few seconds it might take for help to arrive and improve your chance of success? Indeed, an officer arrived at the scene just moments after Slager shot Scott, and he came from a direction that would have allowed him to intercept Scott had he continued running as he was.
Had Slager chosen any of these options, today Walter Scott would be alive and Slager himself would be every bit as unknown to the world as he was at the moment he found himself on Remount Road and behind a 1990 Mercedes with a broken brake light.
But now to the shooting itself.
Im in no way suggesting that witness Feidin Santana planned it this way when he shot the video, but the video is timed precisely to show that portion of the incident most damning to Slager. As the video opens we can hear the sound of a siren and that of a Taser being activated. We hear a voice, presumably Slagers, saying something inaudible, followed by Ill shoot you. When Slager and Scott come into view, at about 0:17 into the video, the two are an arms length apart, with Scott appearing to turn away and Slager reaching for his holstered pistol. The Taser wires, which connect the device to two darts fired from it, can be seen extending between Scott and Slager, and the Taser itself can be seen landing on the ground five to six feet behind Slager. Feidin Santana has said that Scott did not grab the Taser, but if he didnt, how else to explain how it ended up on the ground behind Slager?
I suspect that Slagers defense will be to claim that Scott did indeed grab the Taser, a claim not entirely unreasonable given where the device landed before the shooting. And I suspect he moved the Taser in a panicked attempt to bring the evidence into conformance with his mistaken perception of what had occurred. If a suspect gains control of an officers Taser and is preparing to use it against him, deadly force can be justified in defense. But once the threat has ended, so too must the use of deadly force. I think when Slager drew his weapon, he truly believed Scott still had the Taser. He had made the decision to fire, and he was unable to process the change in circumstances that made the use of deadly force unreasonable and therefore unlawful.
And this is where Scott all but shredded his only potential defense. If he had left the crime scene undisturbed, if he had allowed the evidence to speak for itself, any presence of Scotts DNA on the Taser could only be explained by his having grabbed it as Slager claimed. As things now stand, if Scotts DNA is found on the Taser, prosecutors can argue it was transferred by Slagers handling of it after handcuffing Scott. In acting as he did, Slager not only destroyed his own credibility, he tainted the very forensic evidence that might have supported his already weak claim of self-defense.
Whatever Slagers crimes, there is still a moral distinction to be made between a cop who errs, even as catastrophically as he did, and someone who kills in the course of a robbery or a gang feud or some other act of depravity. When the process has run its course, he will have earned the punishment the law prescribes for him. He has tarnished the police profession and made our job more difficult, but I cannot bring myself to hate him.
It took less than three seconds for Michael Slager to fire those eight rounds at Walter Scotts back. In so short a time, one life was ended, another was forever ruined. And now the sad story is a cautionary tale for police officers everywhere. Slager learned this too late, but sometimes a cop has to stop and think, and sometimes he has to watch a guy run away.
No.
Killer?
Yes.
If I am going to shoot someone I have to show that the person was an immediate threat to myself or others.
Twenty feet away and running from me does not cut it unless they were armed and with something a little more lethal then a tazer.
Better way of putting it.
Blood is thicker than water...and blue is thicker than blood.
I can think of plenty of scenarios...where I’d have no problem shooting someone in the back.
Perhaps you're right.
What would the Founders do?
Oh, wait - the Founders weren't "blessed" with "a cop under every rock", and didn't feel it necessary to tax themselves to the gills to support this type of standing army.
And as to their views on standing armies...
Police Officers are human beings, too, and surely would appreciate civil treatment.
And the less of them there are, the more civilly they'll be treated, I would bet.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder, as the saying goes...
Walter Scott went to lengths to avoid police
http://www.yakimaherald.com/news/livenews/3074139-8/walter-scott-went-to-lengths-to-avoid-police
He did his best to avoid them, yet still they found him...
That tells me something about our "embarrassing wealth" of law enforcement officers - one for every 350 peasants.
I notice them everywhere, too - and their nice gas-hog rigs...
Perhaps he didn't "submit" fast enough.
Of course, "submitting" really fast might just buy you a few kicks in the testicles, a bunch of kidney shots, and a few punches in the head, San Bernardino-style...
So, have Lois Lerner (multiple felonies), Charlie Rangel (tax evasion), Hillary Clinton (again, multiple felonies), Jon Corzine (co-mingling client accounts - felonies galore) or Al Sharpton been arrested yet?
Or do only the peasants have "OBEY the law"?
That's how they slid the Booze Revenue DUI laws in - pre-crime...
RE: Perhaps he didn’t “submit” fast enough
SUBMIT? All you need to do is produce your driver’s license, insurance and registration, sit in the car and wait for your ticket.
I’ve been there and I got a conditional ticket contingent upon my fixing the busted light within a day ( and I didn’t even have to pay a fine ). If that’s what SUBMIT is, then I submitted. I got let go in 5 minutes.
There’s more to this stop than meets the eye,
It's a power-trip thingee...
RE: SUBMIT is “code” for you on your belly, face in the dirt, knee in your back, and hands cuffed behind your back.
Well, if I encountered a cop who asked me to submit like that for a stupid busted tail light, I’d do it. But I’d sue his ass off in court the next day.
Somebody ought to teach black folks to learn to do it the right way.
BTW, those night time speed limits on the wide open
interstate in Texas are rediculas.
**************
Are you talking pre Aug 2011 or after? Texas eliminate both
the night time and truck limits and all operated under one limit.
Before 2011. Good to hear that they eliminated it.
New zoom video of taser struggle:
Also, the post rebuts the b.s. pushed by Slager’s own dept., SLED, the media, and even many Freepers regarding the outset of this case.
What a load.
One of the darts is stuck in Walter Scott's leg, and the wire loops over Officer Trigger-Happy's arm as the Taser scoots backwards and pulls the line taut.
Just like Zimmerman, Slager should have stayed in his cruiser, and not gone looking for trouble.
And just like Zimmerman, his life is destroyed, no matter what happens now.
The police "brotherhood" should have spoken up about the Zimmerman railroading. I predicted that something like this might come of them keeping mum about what that sl*t Angela Corey was up to.
And now here it is...
I’ll have to watch my back when I’m visiting Ft Sill then :-)
kiryandil wrote: The police brotherhood screwed up BIGTIME when they let Angela Corey and the Lefties take down George Zimmerman without getting in their faces, and reiterating LOUDLY and STRONGLY that Zimmerman "feared for his life".
The Left learned from those events, and is now INSIDE the Blue shieldwall, hacking and slashing like the barbarian Huns. Darren Wilson's life is over, the same as George Zimmerman's - and there will be more police officers to come.
I'm not sure what the Left is up to, but it can't be good...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3194542/posts?page=179#179
August 19, 2014
Great logic. Remind me to invite you to teach my debting classs.
I think you will be safe. : )
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