Posted on 04/14/2015 8:51:14 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
RE: Are police officers supposed to use all means necessary to stop someone who is running away?
If the one running away is violent and is judged to be a grave danger to the community, yes, the officer has to stop the man.
In the case of Walter Scott, all indicators look like he isn’t one. Also, there’s no need to give chase. The officer has the car and its registration and plate number. They can always find Walter Scott from the information they have.
Good thing because it seems more and more that we need protection from them.
They CAN’T cooperate with the police because they’re committing crimes. Did it ever occur to them to OBEY the law?
Well. I certainly don’t trust them and I will not put my life in their hands, that’s for sure.
Look at the little black dot at the victim’s feet just to the right. It’s the taser head attached to wires in the victim’s clothing or body. Also, take a look at what’s on the ground to the left of the officer who is in a range-shooting stance. Murder.
Unfortunately it's a small minority who are ruining it for the overwhelming majority of cops who do a good job day after day.
I guess I could see your point if I had a personal standpoint from which to agree. I have only informed reporting, from both reliable and not. The preponderance here lately is not sympathetic to your thought I think.
My personal experience with LE is mixed. Some good (principally in my own small little town with officers who largely carry Model 10-like revolvers and the insane Rambos who infested the county in which I used to live)...
By and large I am not going to depend on them or anyone else to treat me as a citizen vs a subject I think. We have far, far too many psychos in LE.
"Finding the perp later" doesn't work. A perp who resists and runs from a cop in the present will of course do it again later.
That's not to defend Slager's shooting. Just trying to point out what a tough job cops have.
For a guy who is armed and who is resisting, the fact that he is armed is indeed relevant.
The manner in which Slager calmly shot the unarmed man makes me wonder how many times in his career he has gotten away with this same thing.
In a previous thread someone claimed that the officer was justified in shooting him because Scott reached for the officer’s gun. I wonder if Slager thinks that action is all it takes to warrant a death sentence, even though he guy ran away.
Did Slager set out to kill Scott? No
Actually I think he did when he stated “I will shoot you” as scott was running away, And then he shot him.That would be pre- meditated.
SLED said that from the beginning they did not believe the cop’s story. The facts did not match the crime scene. Then, the man came forward with the video.
I recall tuning into the trial once on live television and the defense was showing the video footage of the beating in ultra-slow motion and were explaining to the jury that they were NOT BEATING Rodney King, but simply using force to RESTRAIN King.
They could've fooled me.. because that's NOT what I SAW.
My point: we ALL saw the candid video of a man SHOT in the BACK FIVE times while running away.
Officer Slager had already commandeered Walter Scott's car, had his drivers license. and knew who he was. Just pick him up later and add another charge for his running off.
There was NO NEED whatsoever to SHOOT another human being in the back who was NOT a THREAT to the officer.
Officer Slager's own decision to BOTH SHOOT and to TAMPER with the EVIDENCE have sealed his own fate.
Armed ≠ Dangerous.
On the other hand:
A police officer may not seize an unarmed, nondangerous suspect by shooting him dead...however...Where the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a threat of serious physical harm, either to the officer or to others, it is not constitutionally unreasonable to prevent escape by using deadly force. —Justice Byron White, Tennessee v. Garner[3]
Letting him run off is not a workable strategy.
With that kind of strategy, the perp could keep running every time he is confronted. The correct strategy I believe is for the single officer to follow the perp until reinforcements arrive. At that point they still must catch, tackle and cuff him.
that is well and good too. But, from I have seen from watching shows like COPS , they do not think that we are human beings. To them, we are just criminals that have not been caught yet. Or, as in the case of the two Mexican ladies delivering newspapers and the kid going surfing, targets.
It wasn’t muder.
But it wasn’t a good shoot.
The courts will decide.
If police departments had more funds, they could patrol with more K-9s to help them chase down people who run away, or just act as a deterrent to people who might be thinking about running away during a stop.
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