S. Carolina Police officer will be charged with murder

[Racket_Man]

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/...top/ar-AAayMPl

After stopping the suspect for a broken tail light, the suspect runs, the cop stops him, the suspect breaks away and runs. The cop then pulls out his weapon and fires 8 shots into the running suspect killing the suspect with 2 or 3 shots IN THE BACK. The cop then places an object near the body.

The rub this time is someone caught the incident on video SO there is little ambiguity.

[Mr Hero]

So a guy resists arrest twice and paid for it with his life.

[s_stabeler]

So a guy resists arrest twice and paid for it with his life.

a) he RAN AWAY. Resisting Arrest is when you fight the cops when thye try to arrest you.
b) a broken tail light is a CITATION. NOT something to be arrested over.
c) A cop should only shoot a criminal when there is no choice- when the cop had several chpoices here. ( 1. give chase- the suspect was on foot. 2. let the suspect go- yeah, not ideal, but as far as the cop knew, it was just a broken tail light. if the guy was suspected of a serious crime, i'd agree he couldn't let the guy know.)

so yeah, good call prosecuting the cop in this case.

[wolfie]

I'm curious as to WHY the victim ran. Did he have any warrants out against him that he was afraid the cop would find out about when running his info? Was there contraband in the car he was afraid the cop would find?

A *SMART* person with reasons to want to minimize police scrutiny at the scene would adopt an "Oh shit!" attitude, feigning mild annoyance at the car for letting him down, but being scrupulously polite to the officer. If he's from out of state (or it's outside the normal business hours for auto parts stores), ask the officer if he knows of a place nearby where he can buy a replacement bulb to fix the problem. Someone who acts like the stereotype of a law-abiding citizen, accepting the ticket and wanting to get the car repaired as soon as possible (after all, light bulbs DO burn out) is unlikely to make the officer suspicious enough to look into the situation more closely - so the dozen stolen M-16s in the trunk are never found. Running will DEFINITELY attract additional attention from the police.

[Andara Bledin]

Otherwise "smart people" run all the time.

You get into a fight or flight response in the lizard brain, and it doesn't matter what's actually happening, because your instincts are overriding your intellect.

The fact that the cops have such piss-poor training that they don't know how to deal with people running other than by murdering them and then planting evidence (it was a taser) that they had a weapon as if that's an excuse to shoot someone in the back is terrible.

The police, in general, have had an "us vs them" attitude, especially towards minorities, for so long, that it's surprising more people don't react to being 'stopped while black/brown' (regardless of the actual validity of the stop) doesn't result in more people fleeing.

One question brought up by someone on Ars: What's going to happen to the other officer? The officer that witnessed the murder, witnessed the planting of evidence, and more than likely falsified his report to align with the report of the officer who committed the murder.

[TheHuckster]

The guy who shot that video is lucky the cops didn't spot him. They would have almost certainly done something to "silence" him.

I'm curious as to what happened during the stop that caused the guy to flee in the first place. I imagine this cop, being who he is, provoked the situation to the point the victim fled. Either that or, as wolfie said, he thought he was being pulled over for something else.

Either way, the story makes me sick. Absolutely no justification for the killing.

[s_stabeler]

Actually, there is more information in the papers over here in the UK. he had a warrant out for his arrest, specifically from the family court. ( almost certainly failure to appear in a matter over unpaid child support.)

In other words, the guy wasn't an angle by any means ( according to the papers over here, the guy has an assault and battery conviction from 1987) but should not have been shot.

oh, and the taser wasn't planting a weapon on the guy: from police reports later, he was jabbing the prongs into the guy to make it look like he'd used a taser before shooting the guy.

Not that the guy having a weapon, even if it was a full-auto nuke-launcher, would have justified shooting the guy. You should never shoot a suspect unless there is an IMMEDIATE risk to your own LIFE and shooting the suspect is the ONLY way to prevent it.

[TheHuckster]

Meeeh, I'd say if I were a cop and someone is running away from me with a nuke launcher there'd be a significant risk to not only my life, but the lives of everyone within 10-mile radius.

But you're right in principle. I'd extend that to include anyone else's life, provided the suspect isn't using the victim as a human shield.

[Greenday]

Fact is, you just can't shoot someone who isn't a threat. That's murder. The guy was running away and clearly had no intention of confronting the cop. The cop just unloads at him and hits him twice (missing six times and hitting God knows what). The cop was in no danger. The public was in no danger. Discharging any weapon is not an appropriate response. The cop firing caused more danger to the public than the guy he shot.

And he was wanted to unpaid child support. Not a violent offense. If we are going to shoot people for trying to get out of that, we might as well shoot people for jaywalking or littering while we're at it.

[Aragarthiel]

I thought about it, and I really don't see a reason for cops to carry guns all the time. Tasers are usually enough, and if they find themselves unexpectedly in a dangerous situation, they should be able to either call for backup (who would have guns), let the person go (as in a case like this, where he would have had the guy's license plate number and could have tracked him down), or take a shot. Police officers are given bulletproof gear for a reason, but most regular people don't have that luxury. You never hear about an officer taking a shot and surviving, but that's supposed to be the more common occurrence, not unarmed, nonviolent people being killed.

[Panacea]

I thought about it, and I really don't see a reason for cops to carry guns all the time. Tasers are usually enough, and if they find themselves unexpectedly in a dangerous situation, they should be able to either call for backup (who would have guns), let the person go (as in a case like this, where he would have had the guy's license plate number and could have tracked him down), or take a shot. Police officers are given bulletproof gear for a reason, but most regular people don't have that luxury. You never hear about an officer taking a shot and surviving, but that's supposed to be the more common occurrence, not unarmed, nonviolent people being killed.

Cops do need to carry firearms.

What we need is better screening to weed out the cops who go on an ego trip or power trip, and better training on when and when not to fire.

Body cams would help. North Charleston responded by charging, firing the officer, and ordering body cams for their remaining officers. Good calls, all of them.

Mr. Scott was wanted for unpaid child support. They put you in jail for that in South Carolina (stupid, but they do). He had no violent criminal history and an honorable discharge from the Coast Guard. He was 50 years old.

Slager lied about what happened before the video came out. He claimed that Scott tried to take his Taser away from him, so Slager shot him in self defense.

What the video shows is Scott running away. Slager drops his Taser, draws his gun, fires 8 shots (six miss) before dropping Scott. Slager then drops the Taser by Scott's feet to back up his story about the Taser as he calls it in.

That's why Slager's lawyer quit. He realized he'd been lied to when the video came out and no lawyer wants to represent a client once he realizes he's been told such a whopper.

[s_stabeler]

It's tied into gun laws. In the UK, where police are generally unarmed ( or not with firearms, anyway) there is a very low chance the police will run into someone armed. Hence, a stabproof vest takes care of most of the threat. In America, the gun laws not only have loopholes big enough to drive an Abrams tank through,in quite a few cases, people are allowed to carry concealed guns ( thanks to shall-issue laws. Basically, whoever issues the licenses has to prove why they shouldn't issue a concealed-carry license, rather then you prove you should be.) so the cops can't predict when a traffic stop will turn into a shootout.

[Kheldarson]

Been hearing a lot about this at work. Big opinion seems to be "well, he ran and innocent folk don't run" and "we'll never know the whole truth; they won't tell it/let it be known".

*sigh*

[NecCat]

We must work at very different places, I've been hearing about this at work non-stop too. The prevailing opinion seems to be 'What kind of a sicko shoots a fleeing person in the back?!'

I wonder if the media coverage is slanted differently in different places (I'm in Ontario, Canada).

[BlaqueKatt]

I wonder if the media coverage is slanted differently in different places (I'm in Ontario, Canada).

not necessarily the media slant, but the personal biases.