The standard for analyzing this type of event involves determining what the officer knew at the time, and what a reasonable officer would do in that event. What Slager knew at the time he started to pursue Scott was that he had a guy who was driving a car that wasn’t his and who ran when Slager started to run his license. What he knew at the time of the shooting was that guy had also attacked him.
He had no warrant information at that time, and he had no assurance the license was real. If you want to reach a realistic understanding of the event, you have to determine what the state of the officer’s knowledge was at the instant it occurred, not what was subsequently learned.
The same flaw in logic keeps coming up when an officer shoots someone holding a realistic looking squirt gun. You hear the following, “but it was just a squirt gun”, “but the officer couldn’t tell it was a squirt gun”, “but it was just a squirt gun”... and around and around. You’ll find your ability to predict the outcome of cases like this is vastly improved if you confine yourself to what was known at the time. That’ll be the standard, the rest of it’s of interest in appreciating the irony or sadness of the event, but it doesn’t put you in Slager’s place at that instant.
He had no warrant information at that time
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You may want to check the fact on this one. I think that at the time of the shooting, the cop did know that there was an outstanding warrant for non payment of child support.
I am not up on all the latest perhaps, but driving a car that is not yours is not the same as driving a stolen car. Is there any information at present that the car was stolen?