What did the autopsy say? That’s the missing part here. The autopsy could not have been done so quickly. And there were other eye witnesses, including the passenger in the car. The video changed things dramatically, but we’ll never know how things would have played out had it not existed. I"m trying to imagine how you explain 8 shots in the back not at close range once the autopsy report comes out.
Minor nitpick.
Only four shots in the back. The other four apparently missed.
And yeah, I’m not sure how you could just ignore four shots in the back while the guy was running away.
This isn’t the Michael Brown situation(not that I’m 100% certain Darren Wilson was innocent).
I haven’t seen this explained in my (admittedly haphazard) readings on the issue, but do we know what prompted the victim to run in the first place?
I’m not defending the cop. I think he should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. But I wonder why he ran.
He owed something like $18k in child support. It was reported early on that there was an arrest warrant out for him, but I’m not sure if that is actually correct or not.
He (his lawyer) still has to explain 8 shots at a man running away without his tazer. The missing four times will be part of his defence, no doubt (nervous, first time, etc).
I’ve got to think that the range we saw in the video is “close range”. There was an autopsy - I assume there will be more.
The most damning thing is the cop jogging back to retrieve the dreaded tazer and planting it by Scott’s side. The second most damning thing is what kind of discipline the blue-gloved black cop (don’t know his name) will receive for doing nothing when he saw Strager plant the tazer.
The NYT article covered five hits as reported to the Scott family lawyer by the coroner
So three in the back and one clearly from behind. The ear, I’d guess would be tough to gauge from physical evidence… if there weren’t video of Slager drawing his weapon as Scott is already facing away and starting to flee. I’d guess the ear was part of a controlled pair aimed the head but their training regime would give better insight into what muscle memory he’d developed. Call if 5 hits from behind, 4 to the back of the body, and three actually in the part of the body we call the back.
/nitpickmode 
Using the not so highly accurate measuring tool (a piece of paper marked off Slagers height on my screen), and assuming he’s about 2 yards tall. I get the following ranges:
- First shot is a little shy of 3 Slagers/6 yards. Call it 5-6 yards.
- The last shot (with even more inaccuracy as I walked points while the phone panned) is a little over 7 Slagers. Call it around 14-15 yards.
I wouldn’t call the end close when employing a pistol with quick fire techniques. Slager slows down before the last shot possibly in response. I’m sure eventually there will be details from the coroner’s report for me to compare to.
Unless he’s on a strict suicide watch, I’d give the cop no better than 50/50 of ever being tried because he kills himself.
Are they not trained to shoot at the center of the body and continue until the guy goes down?
My brother is a lieutenant with the Kentucky prison system. As part of his training, he was required to be certified to use a handgun to the standards of the Kentucky State Police. He and I have discussed this sort of thing before, and he has informed me that their training is to aim for the chest/torso region (what they call “center mass”), and to fire until the clip is empty (side note: he’s proud of his aim; I’ve seen him shoot a fly out of the air with a rubber band. He would want the cop in this instance to explain the disgrace of missing 3-4 times).
Forgot to add the obvious:
I can’t speak for South Carolina, but I would imagine that their officers and corrections officers are held to similar standards.
BREAKING NEWS:
The policeman who shot the civilian will not be executed ! Repeat: Mr. Slager is not subject to the death penalty.
Ninth Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson said there are no so-called “aggravating circumstances” present for the authorities to even consider the ultimate punishment for a shooting death that was viewed millions of times on social media and broadcast and cable television.
Cop who shot fleeing suspect not eligible for lethal injection
An anxious nation can breathe again.
Oh no! Either we do it and get a warning for attacking the post and not the poster, or we get a Warning for not following mod instructions!
Oops!
My mistake.
Thanks for the correction.
Not necessarily. Aiming center of mass increases the chance of getting a serious wound because of lots of important bits. That might stop someone pretty quickly or … they keep doing what they are doing despite mortal wounds. There’s a technique Slager’s training or other experience may have introduced him to called the Mozambique Drill. Colloquially we’re talking about two to the chest and one to the head. After firing the shots that have the highest chance of inflicting a serious wound you follow up with a harder shot that has a chance of immediate incapacitation. There’s different variations but it’s not strictly a matter of every LEO taking every shot with a center of mass aim point.
I sincerley hope he dosent…
Your Wikipedia page claims that this “drill” was used by Rhodesia, not exactly a model of successful military tactics all politics aside, and in many fictional books and movies. The reason it’s not used in real life is because it’s really fucking hard to shoot a moving target at all. Shooters are trained to aim for the chest not because that’s the only place where a wound will be incapacitating but because that’s the only place you have a snowball’s chance in hell of hitting.
Someone who can reliably “put one in the head” of a person running towards or away from you would be able to perform the mythical “shoot to wound in the legs” too. This is not a thing serious people worry about because not even an Olympic sharpshooter could do it with any reliability, let alone the average cop or whoever.
(Obviously, this cop should have been trained to not murder people at all, but that’s not the immediate point I wanted to make.)
nm