What do you mean “shooting at the cop first because you assume that if you don’t, you are dead anyways”. That cop was being 100% polite and professional to Scott during the traffic stop. Scott had no rational reason to be afraid in any manner or feel physically threatened. Then HE turned it into a chase, physical altercation and grabbing at the cop’s taser.
Again, I don’t think the cop acted appropriately and apparently let the heat of the moment and adrenaline keep him acting with a cool head. I’m not defending him or think that he should be allowed to remain on the police force. But this was not outright murder or racial discrimination and that is what the left is claiming it to be.
cops should be held to a higher standard than civilians.
this cop had every reason to chase the victim— but not to shoot the victim in the back while he was fleeing, 25+ feet away and no imminent threat to the cop or anyone else.
thus the act is an execution. murder 1 or murder 2? murder 1 is planned while murder 2 is not planned. i personally would go for murder 2.
however, i am not the da. the da has to have a prosecution strategy. one possible strategy is to go into court with legal guns blazing, upping the ante. why would the da do that? — usually the da and le are on the same side against a perp in court. this time, they will be on opposite sides if the case goes to trial. in between now and the trial, it is a battle in the court of public opinion. the da perhaps wants to appear tough, especially if le dropped the ball in the initial investigation.
anyway maybe the da wants to aim high in the expectation of a plea bargain request. if so, it might go: da->defense: murder 1; defense->da: manslaughter; da->defense: murder 2; defense->da: (accept).
note that just about any sentence for the cop might be equivalent to a death sentence, since the cop will be serving time in prison with other violent felons, almost all of whom are in prison because cops caught them.
i am not sorry for the cop because he should not be out there shooting unarmed fleeing people in the back and then lying about it in the hope that no one would catch him in the lie. that is a violation of the public trust. the cop seems to me like he drew the gun because he was too lazy to chase the victim and tackle him. furthermore, he seems like he is relying on the thin blue line to back him up and deem this a righteous shoot.
as for the victim running away, imho we cannot judge the particulars. if the guy had an arrest record, he will have difficulty getting a job. the guy owes child support. so he has two strikes against him. we do not know the circumstances of the child support. is/are the kid/kids actually his? did his SO cheat on him and then make a false accusation of SO abuse against him? i do not see how this is relevant to whether the shooting was justified.
if the shooting is not justified then two observations are important. first is that screening and/or training is flawed. this case is reminiscent of the fruitvale bart station case from a couple of years ago. in both cases, a taser was involved but in both cases, the results were fatal to the victim. the second is that le internal investigation seems to be institutionally flawed in favor of le, to the point that le behavior seems to rely on this to the detriment of justice.
both of these considerations point towards much larger problems than just a single isolated bad le shooting.