These people would need a cop on video saying something like, “Man, I’m glad I shot that nigger. This morning when I woke I said to myself, ‘I’m going to shoot a black person today and nothing will stop me.’ And then I did it. Today has been a great day, especially because my boss will finally get off my back for failing to reach my ‘black people shot’ quota.”
And even then, hey, you don’t want to jump to conclusions, y’know?
Keep in mind that Starving Artist is a Jerry Sandusky apologist. Something about cardboard tubes…
Something similar–Officer speaks of using force before James Boyd shooting:
“That’s just locker room talk.”
Slager didn’t plant a taser on Scott. He moved it from where it lie on the ground after Scott tried to take it from him and moved it close to where Scott lay. This may be a distinction without a difference in the minds of some, but it’s nevertheless a fact that Slager did not plant the taser on Scott’s body.
There are many situations where a cop may lawfully and rightfully shoot a fleeing suspect. Fleeing the scene of a rape, a murder, an armed intrusion, a bank robbery, a kidnapping or abduction, etc., etc., etc.
I’ve said before that I think it’s a problem of training. Cops are being taught to respond this way so as to increase as much as possible their ability to return safely to their homes at the end of the day (which is all well and good until it goes too far and people wind up getting shot because the cops are overly cautious about what are really minor threats). So I’d be reluctant to punish the officers for doing what they’ve been taught to do and for assuming that to do so is legal, because after all, it’s what they’ve been taught to do by cops who ought to know. So I’d suggest that the training methods be changed first of all, and that lawsuits against the cities who allow such training in order to bring them into compliance should their police departments fail to institute such changes in their training procedures.
Shooting an unarmed traffic violator five times in the back vs going home safe?
That’s not “cautious.” That’s murder.
sigh
Did I include shooting an unarmed traffic violator (who had fought with the officer, btw, and attempted to take the taser from him) among the reasons a cop may justifiably shoot a fleeing suspect?
No, I didn’t. And since I didn’t, why your post?
He tampered with evidence to make himself look innocent by putting a weapon on or near his body. That is what planting means.
So a few years ago, a property owner got into a scuffle with an armed burglar. The burglar dropped his weapon (or was disarmed) and he fled. The property owner shot the fleeing burglar twenty feet outside this property line. The property owner dragged the corpse back inside his property line and called the police.
What should happen to that property owner?
Yes, I meant an unarmed fleeing suspect. You can also try to shoot a kidnapper if you think you are a good enough shot to hit the kidnapper without shooting the victim. You can generally shoot a fleeing suspect that poses a threat to the public (see Garner decision). But shooting an unarmed fleeing suspect like this case is inexcusable.
If its a problem with training, then why are cases like this so rare (and they ARE rare)? Why haven’t we seen a rash of unjustified police shootings in South Carolina and around the country? No this was a bad cop and if we stand up to defend all cops good or bad, it gives cops license to be bad.
BTW, who says that the murder victim tried to take the taser away from the cop that planted a weapon on the corpse of the murder victim then lied about it?
I was wondering about that- was the taser struggle caught on tape or is our just the testimony of the cop who then planted the weapon near his body?
[Charges dropped 
](http://bigstory.ap.org/article/2c770aa953884ef68ce485d6df2f521b/prosecutor-drops-charges-death-detroit-college-officer)I’m hoping more information comes to light; this is confusing. Did they have the wrong guy? Is there somehow no evidence? WTF?
Per the local ABC affiliate
Which is weird because per the AP
Yer link is just to the AP front page, eh.
A police office would never lie! Except in, you know, all of those cases where they were caught on tape lying. But we should ignore those and treat everything a cop says as gospel.
I believe Smapti would agree.
There’s no real reason to believe cases like this are or have ever been rare. What’s rare is a shooting like this being caught on tape pretty clearly and that tape being seen by the public. What’s changed is that we now have ubiquitous, cheap, high-quality video cameras everywhere and widespread internet/social media in place to publish those videos.
This is exactly it. Listen to Dave Chappelle or 2Pac and they’ll mention police shootings (“Cops give a damn about a negro. Pull the trigger, kill a nigger he’s a hero”). Wider America is finally seeing that black life is cheap, something black people have known since 1776.
Hell, I still remember vividly the exact words my mother used when my brother and I received “the talk” on how to act around police: “You do exactly what they say immediately or else they will kill you and not a damn thing will happen to them.”
The mounties have decided not to wear body-cams until the durability and battery life improve.
A carefully thought out decision, but a mistaken one IMHO.
Yup, and I should have also mentioned the one other thing that’s changed besides (but because of) the cameras and the internet. People that are mad as hell about it, know their rights, and are willing to stand there on the sidewalk with their phones up every time they see the police doing their thing, even for someone they don’t know.
And though black people have surely bore the brunt of it, I have little doubt that there have been many Walter Scotts of every color. With police shootings, it’s almost like if you’re not blue, you’re black. Ending that kind of shit is in everyone’s best interest, police included.
Well the cop did have to go back and get the taser fro the ground to plant it on the dead body but I’m not really sure if anyone can confirm that there was a struggle other than the cop.
That is a mistake. The American experience with body cameras is that it exonerates far more cops than it condemns. Body Cams are like guns. Sure it can be used against the cop but its a lot better for the cop to have one than not have one.