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

And how do you know that? Where you actually there and able to see the whole incident? Could you hear what the Officer Slager said to Scott before and during the incident?

You seem very eager to blame the victims of these incidents without considering that there actually are cases where complying fully with an LEO still has gotten people shot.

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OZoY5zBKrlk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

Hmm, fair enough. I guess I should go back and watch again. It's odd that the taser didn't work but the cop still should have chased the man down and tackled him instead of shooting him.

 

Look to the bottom right near the officer's feet. You'll see it hit the ground and roll away.

 

IMO it's not irrelevant. They are two separate things, the man was wrong for his stupid high risk actions, the officer was wrong for murdering the man.

It is super rare for someone to be harmed when complying with LEO, could it still happen? Sure, there are bad cops out there but again that's SUPER rare. In this case if the man had complied with the officer, he'd be in jail now, but alive. Any time you engage in high risk, really stupid behavior you are an active participant in your own death. This man acted like a fool and got murdered as a result. Now he's dead and hopefully a bad cop is off the street forever.

 

How do you know that though? You're speculating on incomplete information. You're completely ignoring that given previous incidents there may be reason for Scott to fear for his life. In other words there is no way for you to say for certain if Scott had cooperated fully he wouldn't be dead anyway.

Further while I believe that bad cops is a small minority of LE as more evidence is coming out due to the ubiquity of cameras it isn't looking like it is as super rare as you think.

 

Actually what you are doing is speculating. While there is no way to say for certain that the man would be alive if he cooperated, in the sense that you can never know any hypothetical for certain, there is a REALLY high likelihood that there wouldn't have been a problem if he had cooperated. One or two incidents out of tens of thousands doesn't show what you think it shows.

 

Reading the comments on that thing was interesting. Before the video was released, there were cop defenders galore blasting anyone saying cops are crooked. After the video was released, those who were trying to tell the naive how many of these cops are were like "now what huh", while the cop defenders either didn't show back up or admitted they were 100% wrong.

 

It is irrelevant because it's against the law for the law to shoot someone in that situation in the back... That is why the cop is in jail charged with murder (to go along with the fact he was caught on video). If what the victim did was relevant the cop would be free right now.

And it's becoming more of a rarity that LEO complies with the laws that they are supposed to abide by.

 

That's horrific.

At the risk of getting bashed, I do think its pretty clear that all citizens, but especially targeted minorities, need to be calm/obedient when dealing with cops. For their own safety. It is sad indeed, but we can't take it for granted that all cops are decent human beings who will show some restraint in using lethal force when their orders are not followed.

 

At least the cop used his taser first. One step forward, a million steps back.

 

It's irrelevant in the sense that it doesn't justify the officer's actions, but it's not irrelevant when discussing the man's foolish actions. You can be a complete and total moron AND a victim of a crime. I know, probably blows your mind.

Be an intelligent poster. I didn't shift the focus of this thread I just acknowledged that the guy was an idiot for resisting arrest. The cop is still a murderer and IMO he should get the death penalty for killing that guy. Of course some people only see things in binary terms so I can understand your struggle with it.

Be better.

 

You mean couple steps forward and 8 shots in the back.

#too soon?

 

Ain't this the truth. It's what they do. Always.

 

LOL, "always", when was the last true incidence of a "murderer cop" thread on this board? Such simple minded people here....

 

Well, what will be especially interesting for me will be how this plays itself out once this incident goes to trial...

..but I could just as easily see this being a 2nd degree manslaughter charge for the officer, if there was any type of physical encounter, based on what constitutes a deadly force response in police officer encounters...

The standard for police officers to rely on deadly force to resolve or control citizen encounters is low in my opinion...too low to do the institution any service. The law protects the rights of all citizens...even (and perhaps more importantly) the "dumb" ones....

The reasons why these encounters should avoid a fatal outcome at all costs is to protect the sanctity of the institution. Nobody should trust the representative of a system whose charge it is to "...protect and to serve..." when that representative, by nature of his position, can and often times must, act as judge, jury, and executioner.

I'll keep my usual race-baiting, ill-informed, stupid ni99er comments on the backburner for this once...because even if this happens to white people as often as we're supposed to believe it happens to black people...

...if you have a sentiment about how dumb or stupid or culpable someone is in their own demise at the hands of "peace" officers...then what better start happening is that those sentiments better be held to higher discretionary standards for everybody.

Because I have it on good authority that there are more than a few stupid white people floating around.

And we really need to see this happening to white men, for balance. The fact that it would only take one video or report against 3 or 4 or 5 of these regarding ni99ers to establish equivalency should be easy enough.

Fair is fair, after all.

And another thing that's fair is that I believe in our laws (or at least, our ability to decide that that's the best way to govern ourselves, particularly with all our collective diversity). Those laws can't be applied through a prism of fear or militancy from its arbiters, or we should just stop pretending that we need them.

One more thing about balance, being a liberal ni99er....
...most of what George Will says I don't agree with...

...but he makes a fair enough argument here:
http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20150409/PC1001/150409356/1021/when-everything-is-a-crime-liberty-is-at-risk

 

I had a Fulbright scholarship for my studies in the USA. Had never been to the US before. All of us attended a seminar to prepare us for going to the USA. One of the first things we were taught, for our own safety, was that cops' behavior in the USA is very different to Europe. They told us a story about a Fulbright scholar who got stopped on a highway, cop asked for his driving licence, the guy got really nervous and reached for the glove compartment to get his licence - cop shot him, dead. They told us to always keep the hands on the steering wheel, be polite, make no hasty movements and comply in general.

This was one of the first things I learned about life in the USA...

 

I think part of the issue is that when a white man is killed by police while being an idiot, it's not a story because there's no presumption of racism. Every time a black man is killed by police, there is an automatic presumption of racism making it a story.

That said, this case was a murder so it would be a story regardless of race as long as the video got out.

 

This seems like a two fold problem.

1) We have a "warrior cop" mentality in this country. These guys are taught to be aggressive and recruited to be more military/para-military than public servant, which is their true role. Plus when cops screw up, we protect them, instead of banish them. Our standards for their behavior are abhorrently low.

2) We have the most guns per capita of any country in the world. On average 3 times as many per person than any other industrialized nation. This means that, for police, they have a significantly higher chance of that thing in the glove compartment being a gun than an ID card.

 

OK, to be fair, you don't belong in the same exact category as littletex.