Walter Scott is seen here being executed for having the unmitigated audacity to disrespect a cop who was going to arrest him by running away. Who knew that nonpayment of child support was a capital offense in South Carolina?
Forget anything and everything you’ve heard or thought about police shootings. This isn’t Ferguson or Michael Brown or Eric Garner or Tamir Rice or even Akai Gurley. Those cases involved at least the initial argument that a suspect/perp did something that might have warranted an officer’s activities. Michael Brown menaced Officer Darren Wilson. Eric Garner resisted arrest and died from the rigors of the arrest process and not being shot or beaten. This case is different. Drastically. Walter Scott was executed by an officer who never apparently thought of giving chase. Who shot Scott, as many have stated, like a deer. For sport. Sick sport. No argument could be made that this man posed a threat as he merely ran away and never even looked back, nothing furtive or threatening in the least. No feasible and available argument to explicate why this officer summarily dispatched this man. None.
We don’t need no stinkin’ grand jury. This North Charleston police officer, now charged with murder, decided he wasn’t going to give chase to a 50 year-old, out of shape traffic and child support miscreant. No, siree! Give chase?! Are you kidding? This cop violated every known rule of police pursuit known to mankind without exception. “When you’re wrong, you’re wrong,” North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey said, announcing the arrest. “When you make a bad decision, I don’t care if you’re behind the shield or a citizen on the street, you have to live with that decision.” It will be a tutorial in police academies (I hope) for generations to come.
Michael Slager (CREDIT: Charleston Police Department)
This is the judge and executioner of Walter Scott. Add to the mix his cockamamie story about having Scott trying to wrest his Taser away from him — a Taser that he’s seen apparently dropping next to the dead, limp and bullet-riddled Scott — and there’s your opening for some serious Justice Department investigation. Notice also this mindless cop SOP thing about insisting that everyone be handcuffed behind their back even after they’ve clearly and absolutely are immobilized after HAVING BEEN SHOT IN THE BACK FIVE TIMES! His insistence upon protocol apparently didn’t include a cognizance of even determining whether he had probable cause or justification to use deadly force. Thank Gawd there was a video and thank Zeus the videographer who was in proximity wasn’t roughed or even worse. The fact that Scott was shot in the back as verified by a coroner’s report wouldn’t necessarily have provided his guilt for he could have alleged a furtive or quick or sinister move that precipitated such. No, thanks to Little Brother, Big Brother was nabbed in the act. And emphasis cannot be made enough as to the rarity of a cop charged with murder. Bravo!