An Objective Search For Facts And Tribal Storytelling...Officer is charged with murder after shooting video surface...

[Selene]

As the ABA Journal reports:

 

 

A police officer in North Charleston, South Carolina, has been charged with murder after a video showed him shooting a man in the back as he ran away.

 

The 33-year-old officer, Michael Slager, shot 50-year-old Walter Scott after a traffic stop for a broken tail light on Saturday, report the New York Times and the Charleston Post and Courier.

 

Slager had fired his Taser at Scott after the traffic stop, but it did not take down Scott, police say. The video, provided to the New York Times and the Post and Courier, apparently shows Taser wires extending from Scott’s body during a “tussle” between Scott and Slager, the Times says. An object knocked to the ground could be the Taser. Scott then begins to run, and Slager draws his gun and fires eight times. Scott drops to the ground.

Slager then goes back to the site of the scuffle, picks up an item and drops it near Scott. He later reported that Scott had taken his Taser.

 

Scott was wanted on a warrant issued by the family court and had a history of arrests on contempt charges related to failure to pay child support, according to the Post and Courier.

 

"Slager is white and Scott was black. Eighteen percent of the officers with the North Charleston police department are black; the city’s population is 45 percent black, the Post and Courier reported in September.

Chris Stewart, a lawyer for Scott’s family, said Tuesday night that the incident is bigger than race, Reuters reports.

 

'It goes to power itself. This was a cop who felt like he could just get away with shooting someone that many times in the back,' Stewart said. 'It speaks to the value of human life.'"

 

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/bcvideo/1.0/iframe/embed.html?videoId=100000003615939&playerType=embed">

 

 

http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/south_carolina_officer_is_charged_with_murder_after_shooting_video_surfaces/?utm_source=maestro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily_email

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Adam,

I think this story is a brush-fire. It lacks a critical component to do a propaganda media run and lather up a massive backlash.

It is not vague and slanted toward stereotypes.

A racist issue needs a lot of public denial to get strong media traction. Since real racists in the mainstream are hard to come by, the media manipulators of this kind of narrative get the denial in another form.

It's like a shell that conveys a virus within.

The shell: They find an event that can fit a victimization narrative story for the black community--and the fit has to be good enough to include the stereotypes and contain a death, but loose enough to validly support different interpretations.

The virus: As the issue is factually vague and slanted toward stereotypes (Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, etc.), but the accusation from the story is clear, people who value objectivity protest. As this is a form of denial (albeit a valid one), in the minds of the people believing the victimization storyline, this to them illustrates the narrative they hold so dear. It's bait and switch where a valid question (i.e., denial) gets put in the slot of the racist's denial in the storyline as if the questioner were a hardcore racist trying to hide a crime.

The racist storyline is best summed up by the people who constantly said white police officers where "hunting down young black males like dogs and killing them in cold blood. And then white people deny it."

The victimization story is powerful in terms of emotions, especially because this did happen during American history. So people who get caught up in this emotion and storyline know that racists will lie their asses off and deny everything. That's just how the story is. This story is now the reality in their minds for all people.

Then they hear reasonable people saying, "Wait a minute, this guilt isn't exactly clear, maybe we should look further" and all they need is a nudge to make them believe these reasonable people are racists. So they slug it out in the media and, sometimes, literally by rioting.

The story you just referenced of the cop shooting the guy in the back doesn't have the factual vagueness to make a strong media run. Everybody knows the cop did it. And he was promptly arrested.

There's no denial by anyone in the mainstream because the issue is clear. Granted, we have to presume the guy is innocent until proven guilty, but most everybody is treating this like a formality. They are almost sure he was wrong and their demeanor conveys it. So there's nothing for the propaganda media manipulators to manipulate.

People get hopping mad when they believe a story with all their hearts and minds, it looks like the story is playing out in reality and there is real damage to see, and there are people denying it. (This is the principle behind religious wars.)

When a person does something wrong and gets promptly punished for it, that kind of story does not get anyone mad for too long. It can't be used to stir up a crowd. There is no "us against them" since everyone agrees and the bad guy got punished.

Don't think Sharpton & Co. don't know what I just laid out. They know it. They choose their protest issues well. And the governing value for such choice is not injustice. It is factual vagueness that can be manipulated with an emotional victimization story and consequently denied by reasonable people. The viral kernel that will keep people yelling at each other. Even good people.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

It's a wonder the cop didn't have a "give-up gun."

I don't think a broken tail light justifies a traffic stop. Maybe at night.

I once knew a NYC cop who got in trouble because, as another cop related, "He beat up a nigger in plain sight." Later he was fired, but I don't know the reason. I once saw him cut cocaine. He said on another occasion that if he were offered a bribe to spike a drug bust of about $200,000, that "I'd have to talk with my partner." That made him stupid, too. Now, one million dollars . . . ?

Another (retired) NYC cop I knew didn't know proper use of a handgun as a civilian meaning he didn't know as an officer for 20 years. If you pull a gun and someone doesn't comply the next item on the menu is you shoot him. If that's not on your menu--for practical, moral and legal reasons--you don't pull the gun. Once the gun comes out you've destroyed most other options.

The same officer was also a control freak. You don't mess with a control freak. Many cops are control freaks. I guess that attitude is re-enforced by job necessity, but too much is too much.

Inappropriate police conduct can easily be white cop against whitey, not just a black man, but you're likely 10 times safer for being white than black. It's understandable why even a justified white-cop/black-man shooting causes rage and violence from blacks because of a long history of police racism in action against blacks.

--Brant

worse than I thought

[Selene]

Yep...I know for a fact that there are a small and statistically significant number of police officers/sheriffs who are prejudiced at a level that makes them take actions based on race.

 

Enough, at this point in time, where citizens/civilians are suppressed from legally possessing weapons for self defense, and police are the only defense, that officer's behaviors reach the level of racism acting under "color of law."

 

Apparently, there is a dashboard camera video that shows the preceding actions that led to the officer's firing up to eight (8) rounds at the fleeing individual.

 

http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsnow/la-pn-hillary-clinton-campaign-story-20150409-story.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/10/us/video-of-encounter-that-led-to-south-carolina-police-shooting-is-released.html?_r=0