Posted on 04/07/2015 2:46:55 PM PDT by smokingfrog
The North Charleston police officer who fatally shot a 50-year-old man during a traffic stop on Saturday has been arrested and is being charged with murder.
North Charleston Patrolman First Class Michael Slager, 33, will face the charge in connection with the shooting death of Walter Scott.
That announcement came at a press conference late Tuesday afternoon from North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey who referred to a video someone recorded of the shooting Saturday morning.
The video had been sent to Scott's family and the South Carolina State Law Enforcement Division, Summey said.
"As a result of that video and bad decisions made by our officer, he will be charged with murder," Summey said.
"It's been a tragic day," North Charleston Police Chief Eddie Driggers said.
Driggers said the video shows Scott "taking off" and the officer shooting the suspect.
Summey called the video "very demonstrative" and said without the video, it would have been difficult to resolve the issue. Summey said the city is trying to meet with Scott's family and will reach out to them any way they can.
(Excerpt) Read more at live5news.com ...
Sad that a video had to be the trigger to arrest this cop and not the evidence of shots to the man’s back at a distance.
People do strange things under stress, so I can’t categorically disagree with you, and I am sure this will be a central part of the prosecution’s case so we will learn more as the process continues.
Hey it works for Paul Blart!
;-D
If the guy was white, it would have been a good kill
No, it wouldn't. But it would have been ignored.
Belt-fed guns or chain guns could also be mounted on a Seqway. Tacticool, no? And maybe facial recognition equipment with WiFi to find out quickly whether or not a perp is likely to have enough cash flow to sue. Now that would be full Batman!
Don’t know whether this can be proven or if the WaPo is wrong (certainly wouldn't be the first time) but if it can be established, it certainly is an important fact in a decision to charge.
In the full video, the cop definitely goes back to where the "chase" started an picks something up. After that, the video is very shaky. When I clears up, the cop picks something up NEXT to the body and clips it to his left hip.
Dude, you got bad eyes.
I don’t care. It’s a 51 year old man with a flabby body 15 paces from the cop who is just casually taking aim and gunning him down. It wouldn’t look much worse if he was carrying an infant under each arm.
Not a good shoot. Great shot though.
Agreed. This one looks bad for the cop. The video really looks like the guy drops something next to the body. If that turns out to be the case, this guy is going to fry.
I was thinking that they guy recording this is probably lucky that fence was between him and the police all that time. The video would have been confiscated.
We don’t have all the evidence, but at this point, the question has to do with what the correct point was on the use of force continuum, and whether deadly force was justified at the time it was used. The fact that it may have been justified at an earlier point isn’t relevant.
I wouldn’t hazard a “good/non-good” guess based on what’s available at the moment.
Looks to me like the taser’s on the ground near Slager’s left foot at the time of the shooting, (we don’t see how it got there, because there’s no video of the fight) the wires are paying out as he runs away, and the probes are in Scott’s clothing. After Slager has him cuffed, he just picks it up and moves it over to get it all in one spot. I think the claims of planting are unintuitive, since that wouldn’t be the standard on which the shoot would be evaluated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleeing_felon_rule
I think you nailed it right there.
But not the entire incident. What took place prior to the shooting is extremely relevant.
Here’s a thought, don’t flee police making a lawful traffic stop, fight with them, and then use one of their weapons AGAINST THEM, and you won’t get shot.
It’s not rocket science. Well, to quite a few FReepers it seems to be.
So, you can attack police, using your age as a licence, and then run away scot free?
What ever happened to the rule of law?
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