Now an LEO is charged with murder here...

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138477513 said:
The partner of the officer who fired was Black. I suspect that if he was the one who shot, we would not be discussing the case. People are allowing anti law enforcement bias to cloud their judgement along with a misunderstanding of what exactly TN v. Garner means.
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General Reminder to all -


Racial issues is banned from discussion. Good, bad, complimentary or derogatory.... doesn't matter. Banned from discussion.

Also remember that general LEO bashing is banned. Critiquing the actions in this event is perfectly fine, but we aren't going to lapse into any general negative comments about LEOs.
 
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CAJUNLAWYER said:
I am wondering what happened prior to the video that would make the bystander unholster his cell phone and begin filming in the first place? People usually do not walk around with video at the instant ready position.....the video is disturbing indeed and by itself looks like a bad shoot. But I t'warn't there so I shall await cooler heads dissecting the event
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Maybe he was just out for that proverbial walk in the park, and heard the commotion, then realized this was something worth capturing on video?
Could explain him not recording the incident before the guy started to run, he was out of view, but had the video going.

Anyways, him and his video will be highly scrutinized by the prosecutors, investigators, and defense lawyers, I suppose.
 
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Scott was hit by several of the shots fired by the officer: three in the back (one of which pierced his heart), one just above the buttocks, and one in one of his ears, IIRC from the story I read.

I post this only because someone wondered how many times he was hit, that's all. Nothing further insinuated.
 
GatorFarmer said:
I think it might well be a justifiable shooting under the Garner standard, as the fleeing man qualified as a danger to the community. In fact, I think it a politicized tragedy that the officer has been treated this way.

The fleeing guy fought the officer, resisted him, fought off being Tazed, and then stole the officer's Tazer and had it in hand while fleeing initially.

As for eight times being shot, well you shoot as many times as you need to.

If the guy had not attacked the policeman, fought him, and stole his Tazer and then fled..he would not have been shot. The bad thing is not that a criminal was killed, but in the way the policeman is being treated and villified in the media.
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"qualified as a danger to the community"

What danger would that be? Driving with a broken tail light? Skipping out on child support?

He had no other criminal record.

How was the "community" in danger?

Sounds like the dangerous one was the guy with the gun in this story....
 
The reason for the initial stop is irrelevant. The shooting did not follow from a broken tail light or lax child support payments. The shooting resulted from an attempt to violently evade arrest. Reportedly the deceased did not want to go to jail...who does? So he broke away, fought the police, a less lethal means of subduing him failed - the deceased being angry or stubborn or tough enough that the Taser had no effect on him - and then he was fleeing attempting to continue to avoid arrest.

At that point he was not a guy with a broken tail light. He was a dangerous fleeing felon once he resisted arrest and opted to flee and he was "stopped".

What I see is a city throwing this poor cop under the bus because that is what is best for business. No one has yet pulled up the relevant SC law about fleeing felons. My hunch is that this was a legal shooting.

This is actually classic police work as traditionally practiced in America for most of American history. Felon flees. Felon gets shot to prevent said flight. Case law in most states will tend to support this.

Was the dead man a felon? Well he was if he violently resisted arrest probably, by the act of violently resisting, etc.

Did he flee? Looks like he did.
 
Bat Guano said:
Somehow I don't think that would fly in front of an oral board interviewing for a law enforcement job.
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Indeed. IMHO America has moved on rather from the "traditional" ways of dealing with fleeing felons. Shooting unarmed folk in the back is just not acceptable any more unless they are running to trigger a dirty bomb.
 
I have yet to discuss this with an LEO, and I know a google, who did not shake his head, look down at the floor, and go "Wow . . . " All, of course, based on what we know from the media. I feel bad for the officer's family.
 
You bring up a well reasoned argument, with some valid points, but ultimately you are wrong.

First, the 1985 USSC ruling overrides state laws on the matter.

The decedent did in fact resist arrest to some degree, but that doesn't mean that he was a threat to the officer at the time of the shooting.

He was running away and I have to think that he officer could have caught up with him and used his service baton (assuming he had one) or chemical spray (again assuming he had one).

It's going to be hard, if not impossible, to convince a jury or even one juror that there was a threat to the officer here.

Even if he had a history of violence, the officer is unlikely to have known that and based on what seems to have happened, it's a high mountain to climb to convince a jury that this was a justified shooting.

Then there is the matter of whatever object the officer picked up and then dropped next to the suspect. That, plus it appears that he might have changed his story and lied to his former counsel.


GatorFarmer said:
The reason for the initial stop is irrelevant. The shooting did not follow from a broken tail light or lax child support payments. The shooting resulted from an attempt to violently evade arrest. Reportedly the deceased did not want to go to jail...who does? So he broke away, fought the police, a less lethal means of subduing him failed - the deceased being angry or stubborn or tough enough that the Taser had no effect on him - and then he was fleeing attempting to continue to avoid arrest.

At that point he was not a guy with a broken tail light. He was a dangerous fleeing felon once he resisted arrest and opted to flee and he was "stopped".

What I see is a city throwing this poor cop under the bus because that is what is best for business. No one has yet pulled up the relevant SC law about fleeing felons. My hunch is that this was a legal shooting.

This is actually classic police work as traditionally practiced in America for most of American history. Felon flees. Felon gets shot to prevent said flight. Case law in most states will tend to support this.

Was the dead man a felon? Well he was if he violently resisted arrest probably, by the act of violently resisting, etc.

Did he flee? Looks like he did.
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This was a bad shoot. That is why the officer has been charged with murder. This incident hurts Every police officer trying to do their already difficult job. In turn everyone will be affected by the diminished ability of the police to protect and serve.

We all loose.
 
I don't think so...

WATCHDOG said:
Possibly not. It's an amateur video, shot with a cell phone. While someone's reactions might be quick and their intent is to quickly capture something on video, phones are often slow to activate. On my iPhone, I have to swipe to activate the phone, then hit the camera icon, then swipe again to switch to video mode, then hit the "record" button...all the while trying to maintain the camera's field of view. It isn't an instantaneous process. All that is a relatively easy process, but it still takes a few seconds to get it going. You can miss a lot in a few seconds.
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I think that whenever an LEO pulls somebody over the cameras start rolling right away.
 
I am always amazed at how people will complain when they think a LEO is slow to respond or act, and how quickly they will convict him on the basis of a piece of video that only shows part an incident.
 
sunnyd said:
I am always amazed at how people will complain when they think a LEO is slow to respond or act, and how quickly they will convict him on the basis of a piece of video that only shows part an incident.
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I understand your position, but in light of the release of the timeline and the partial transcript of the radio calls by the officer, what in your opinion could possibly have occurred prior to the start of that video that allows that officer to shoot a person who is 6 to 8 feet away from him without a weapon and turns and runs away? This is not a hill to die on . . .
 
Wyatt p. Tato said:
This was a bad shoot. That is why the officer has been charged with murder. This incident hurts Every police officer trying to do their already difficult job. In turn everyone will be affected by the diminished ability of the police to protect and serve.

We all loose.
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Wyatt is right. This is a bad shoot. Very bad, and yes, we all lose.

This thread, and the subject of it, breaks my heart. As much as I would like him to be right, the officer is way wrong, and he'll pay for it for the rest of his days.

This officer has thrown his own life away in the couple seconds it takes to squeeze off a few rounds. Took the life of a guy few will genuinely mourn, save the family and those who will capitalize on this to incite more drama to further an agenda. All of it seems hardly worth the strife that is left in the wake this sad incident.

Yup, we all lose.
 
GaryS said:
You bring up a well reasoned argument, with some valid points, but ultimately you are wrong.

First, the 1985 USSC ruling overrides state laws on the matter.

The decedent did in fact resist arrest to some degree, but that doesn't mean that he was a threat to the officer at the time of the shooting.

He was running away and I have to think that he officer could have caught up with him and used his service baton (assuming he had one) or chemical spray (again assuming he had one).

It's going to be hard, if not impossible, to convince a jury or even one juror that there was a threat to the officer here.

Even if he had a history of violence, the officer is unlikely to have known that and based on what seems to have happened, it's a high mountain to climb to convince a jury that this was a justified shooting.

Then there is the matter of whatever object the officer picked up and then dropped next to the suspect. That, plus it appears that he might have changed his story and lied to his former counsel.
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Tenn vs Garner did not over rule all state laws allowing for the shooting of fleeing felons.

Officer Slager and the deceased were fighting hand to hand and on the ground before the tape started. This detail comes from the guy who took the footage, and appears on CNN. The witness said the officer seemed to have control of the situation, though obviously this was not the case as the suspect was able to flee.

The deceased suspect was attempting to physically over power the officer and escape.

In the confusion of the incident, it was not readily apparent to the officer if the deceased was armed or unarmed, and the officer apparently believed that the deceased had control of the officer's Taser.

Violent felon, who assaulted an officer, tried to flee...less than lethal option was tried and failed... this forced an escalation to deadly force.

Slager in his confusion initially picked up the Taser, then holsters it securing it, being momentarily stunned. Perhaps the other officer told him to pick it up. We don't know.

What we do know is the media and his own department have seen fit to throw Slager to the wolves for obvious reasons.
 
Slager runs back to pick up the Taser, then drops it right near the body.


Sure didn't seem too confused there.
And the dead man's name is Mr Scott, fyi.

The witness has also said he was told by an officer to leave the scene, and that they didn't know he had a video. He additionally said he came foward with his recording after seeing the official police reporting and local coverage that contradicted his view of the events.

Now he says he's in fear for his own life.
 
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Wyatt p. Tato said:
This was a bad shoot. That is why the officer has been charged with murder. This incident hurts Every police officer trying to do their already difficult job. In turn everyone will be affected by the diminished ability of the police to protect and serve.

We all loose.
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I sincerely hope this doesn't result in a police officer being ambushed and killed somewhere, by some nut who's decided that he's going to avenge the victim in this case... :(
 
In a jam you choose "fight or flight". The video shows mr. Scott choosing to flee at least at that moment. Maybe his senses told him to "get out of there" for obvious reasons but we'll probably never know.

One thing I do know. If shooting a fleeing suspect in the back is legal and justified as has been suggested here then i may be in trouble. These gun blasted ears of mine don't hear so good. May not hear the sirens.

I sure feel sorry for the man that got gunned down like that. Bad way to go.
 
R/E the argument this was a justified shoot as he was attempting to escape after struggling with the officer - In my 30 years as a LEO, if I shot everyone who resisted being taken into custody, my duty gun would be on its fourth or fifth pair of grips, the others unusable do to all the notches....

Case law has held that to shoot a fleeing felon, he must present a serious, articulable, clear and present danger to the community. Nowhere is there a shred of evidence that this existed in this case. Having an expended taser sticking in him as he runs does not qualify.

Using the standard expressed by some, you could question a drunk driver alongside the road. When you go to cuff him, he pushes you away, and starts to walk away from you, so its Ok to shoot him in the back until he drops?

I can't claim to know what was going thru that officers head when he took the actions he did. But if I were to guess, he got some kind of tunnel vision, a particular course of action came into his head, and he was unable to see past it as the situation changed. He went to autopilot, and did what he did. People make strange decisions under pressure, and not all of them good, or even understandable.

Another thing that gets me is how the officer is always painted by the press as being a thug, looking for the opportunity to kill some unfortunate citizen. Yet, most officers involved in these controversial shoots are experienced officers, with some time behind the badge. Common sense tells us if they were as portrayed by the press, they would have stepped over the line a lot earlier in their careers. Frankly, I feel bad for all involved, including the families. A bad situation, all around.

Larry
 
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It looks like an additional charge of tampering with evidence might be brought against officer Slager. That object Slager picked up and then dropped next to the body of Mr. Scott as he lay dead on the ground has not been explained yet.

Also from what was first reported, the SC police chief said that officer Slager performed CPR on Mr. Scott while waiting for EMS to arrive.

From what I have seen in that video, no CPR was being done.

It will be interesting to read the police report officer Slager filed, if he had time to do so before his arrest.

And lets not forget, there was an eye witness to this shooting. It will be interesting to hear what he has to say with regard to what he saw that day.

This thread will probably be locked long before this all plays out....
 
zzzippper said:
Your diagnosis of shock is an uninformed opinion yet you caution others from rushing to judgment. I'm getting a mixed message.
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I'm a military veteran, I've attended several of David Grossman's seminars on deadly force encounters, I have a BS in Criminology, and Sociology, and am currently a SC law enforcement officer, with 18 years of experience. My diagnosis of shock is an opinion, however I wouldn't say that it's uninformed.

I don't excuse the officers actions, however I do understand how, and why they occurred. I would also submit, that if placed in a similar "High Stress" situation, many young officers, would have done something similar.

I guess, the reason I caution against a "knee jerk" rush to judgment, is that I've personally been in similar situations. I intimately understand what, the officer was dealing with physically, and mentally during the altercation, and how he could do something so stupid.

I also understand the training that he received at the SC Law Enforcement Academy, and the reality on the street. I'm not going to say any more about that.

I personally believe,only two things could have prevented this unfortunate incident from occurring. The first is, the Subjects immediate compliance with law enforcement.
The second is the presence of a back up officer, for many reasons. Unfortunately, most "if not all" South Carolina agencies are critically understaffed on the street.

If you'd like to discuss it further, you can PM me.
Otherwise say a prayer for the officer, and his family, because they are victims of this event as well.
 
GatorFarmer said:
The reason for the initial stop is irrelevant. The shooting did not follow from a broken tail light or lax child support payments. The shooting resulted from an attempt to violently evade arrest. Reportedly the deceased did not want to go to jail...who does? So he broke away, fought the police, a less lethal means of subduing him failed - the deceased being angry or stubborn or tough enough that the Taser had no effect on him - and then he was fleeing attempting to continue to avoid arrest.

At that point he was not a guy with a broken tail light. He was a dangerous fleeing felon once he resisted arrest and opted to flee and he was "stopped".

What I see is a city throwing this poor cop under the bus because that is what is best for business. No one has yet pulled up the relevant SC law about fleeing felons. My hunch is that this was a legal shooting.

This is actually classic police work as traditionally practiced in America for most of American history. Felon flees. Felon gets shot to prevent said flight. Case law in most states will tend to support this.

Was the dead man a felon? Well he was if he violently resisted arrest probably, by the act of violently resisting, etc.

Did he flee? Looks like he did.
Click to expand...

Sorry sir but I find the argument above totally unrealistic. I would invite you to read this > Deadly Force legal definition of Deadly Force .

As a former conservation LEO, I found that video to be very disturbing in many ways as far as the LEO's actions go. As others have stated, I have no idea what led up to the point where the video starts but I can think of absolutely no reason why the LEO did what he did especially the way he tried to move the laser undetected. There was no threat of deadly force from a suspect that is running away and would be no different if a private citizen shot a person in the back while running down your driveway after a robbery attempt or worse. This LEO made a really bad choice and he needs to face justice.
 
It is interesting to note the guy that filmed this actually thought about deleting it and acting like it never happened.

South Carolina shooting: Man who took video feared retribution, considered erasing it - LA Times

he went to the police station to show the tape to disinterested fellow officers. At that point something would have happened to him any way and the tape would have disappeared. It was only at a later encounter with a relative of the deceased did he acknowledged that he filmed the encounter. He did not want to come forward, only after statements of things that did not happen to back up the officer did he come forward. When he realized that the officer would get off he decided to release the tape. He did the right thing by giving it to the lawyer who coordinated everything with the national news. Once it hit that point, they could not get the officer charged fast enough in order to not make this another civil rights incident. It is bad news but ultimately a bad decision by a bad officer. It is cool to say every traffic is a felony stop to justify violent police behavior but in this incident the police officer received what he should have.
 
What happens in that video is very sad.
I do not know exactly what happened to get to that point, but that man did not deserve 8 in the back!
From what I see,unless I missed something that guy is un-armed and at that point is posing no threat! The guy is running away!
C'mon 8 in the back,,,,Really? This is very disturbing!
 
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