South Carolina cop charged with murder in black man's death

I don't know what happened, but considering the officer shot him 8 times in the back for no reason and then left him face down in the dirt, the man might have had good reason to fear for his life. Who knows what the cop said to him prior to his decision to run.

Stop throwing the phrase "fighting with the cop" into the mix. He ran away, he wasn't trying to "fight."

 

He looked like he was running in mud, too. Not like the cop couldn't have easily ran after him and taken him down without even drawing his weapon.

I love how the cop runs up and tells him to put his hands behind his back.....after shooting him 8 times. That came off as being for show in case anyone was recording. He knew he was dead.

Just watched the video again (not sure why). The cop shot him 7 times...and then went for the kill-shot with the 8th. He was definitely shooting to kill. Very disturbing.

 

Standard stop-and-frisk-style pretext violation to give minorities a hard time.

 

Wow, i forget who the cops are on this board, but no response yet.

 

Anas Acuta is the one who comments the most and has some interesting views on civilians and the use of deadly force by the police.

The Law is the other one that I can remember and is actually pretty reasonable and well spoken. I don't see him post here very often.

 

Hell the problem is . .. . .he gets killed for 'being stupid'
Meanwhile you got white guys shooting at cops and still manage to be apprehended without dying .. . how is that?

Rocket River

 

My impression too. Whatever was said this victim was fearful of his life. The cop wanted to kill. Seems painfully apparent to me. 8 shots in a guys back running at approx 5 miles per hr. It's an execution the guy thought he could get away with.

 

Yeah, I'm not trying to say running from the cops is a good idea, but this man couldn't have thought he'd get away at the speed he was running. It seemed more like he was desperate. I'm seriously wondering if the cop said something to him that made this man think he was in real danger if he didn't escape somehow.

And if he DID think that, he was proven right. He was gunned down from behind despite the cop having no reason to fear for his own life or to think the man would escape. The scene reminds me of the Austin Powers movie where the guard won't get out of the way of the slow moving roller and gets squashed. That man was not going to escape.

 

The dirt from the suspect running could've blinded the officer or caused an infection.

Do whatever it takes to go home to your family. Oh wait, he's in jail with no bail.

As to what actually happened, I'd guess is that after the stop, suspect gets out of the car since he knows the unpaid child support that will get him arrested. Officer follows and pulls out his taser to restrain suspect. For whatever reason he's within arms distance and the suspect grabs or deflects the taser to avoid getting tased. At this point, officer grabs suspects wrist, and the taser falls to the ground. Suspect begins to run, while officer draws his gun and fires 8 shots.

You may also notice that the officer failed to warn the suspect ("stop or I'll shoot") before firing. This should be textbook second degree murder.

 

Crickets...

 

Ex-cop here.
There is an extensive chunk of the police academy dedicated to "Shoot/Don't Shoot" scenarios. There is no excuse for these lapses in judgement. As I've said before there were times where I would have been justified in the shooting of a suspect but fortunately situations worked out to their benefit. The shoot first, ask questions later mentality has gone too far. If cops are afraid for their lives so frequently then maybe they are in the wrong line of work. Baking may a better fit for their fear of confrontation.

Deadly force is the last resort, not the first.

 

Thanks AB, this sounds more reasonable than a few posters on this board.

 

You imply that black guys shooting at cops never get apprehended without dying either, and that is far from the truth. You also imply that white guys never get killed by cops, which is also far from the truth.

This cop is despicable, and I am glad it was caught on video. There are certainly crooked/racist/evil cops out there, and there always will be. With every incident, the public has to look at all evidence available (video, eye witnesses, etc) to determine an outcome. That is the best we can do. Requiring all cops to wear a body-cam all of the time is about the only thing I can think of that would create better accountability.

I think we have a hell of a lot more good cops out there than bad ones, but we need to try to keep all cops accountable to their actions and do this to the best of our ability. I'm really not sure what else can be done. What exactly do you propose to change the situation?

 

actually you can't rule that out -- the video started with some close physical movements between the cop and the victim

 

Yes. I also can't rule out that prior to the start of the video the cop was having a threesome with Olivia Munn and Olivia Wilde, but based on context clues it would seem unlikely.

 

From this single frame I don't see how you could determine Scott was fighting the LEO. It looks like he is trying to escape but anyone who knows self-defense should know that "escape" and "fight" are two very different things.

It is possible there was a physical altercation but none of the evidence so far seems definitive to me that there was.

 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>The police officer who killed Walter Scott in South Carolina is fired <a href="http://t.co/KfYsidMJwW">http://t.co/KfYsidMJwW</a></p>&mdash; The New York Times (@nytimes) <a href="https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/585878582280458240">April 8, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

Holy **** @ that taser drop if that's really what it was.

Just....damn.

 

actually you're way off. Why did the man run? Did he just assault the cop? Was he resisting in some way? You certainly can't rule out some physical interactions prior to the video beginning.

 

that still wouldn't justify shooting a retreating man in the back at that range.