I was looking for something to post about that was timely, and preferably something local to get away from all the Trumparama, but the only real news development today (so far) is this:
The former South Carolina police officer caught on video opening fire into the back of a black man who was running away is expected to plead guilty Tuesday to a federal civil rights charge, according to the officer’s lawyer and people familiar with the case.
Michael Slager, who worked for the North Charleston Police Department, had faced both federal civil rights and state murder charges in connection with the April 2015 shooting of Walter Scott, a 50-year-old unarmed motorist who fled after a traffic stop. Slager will plead guilty to a single federal civil rights charge — which his lawyer described as “using excessive force” — as part of a deal to resolve both cases, people familiar with the case said….
And normally I don’t choose to comment on such cases because a) I think we’re in agreement that homicide is bad, and b) that people who commit it should be punished.
But this case does offer some things to comment on. And the one that strikes me is this: Having a man who emptied his weapon into the back of a fleeing victim be convicted on a “civil rights charge” is a rather unsatisfying conclusion.
And putting on my subsidiarity hat, I also really don’t like the federal involvement in high-profile homicide cases in South Carolina, as though we’re not capable of prosecuting them ourselves.
Of course, maybe we’re not, if it was so hard to get a homicide conviction in this case.
I don’t know. I haven’t followed the case all that closely. Do any of y’all know: What on Earth did the defense present that balanced out that video? I mean, I realize the video was selective. But I’m still having trouble imagining what could have gone before that could have been sufficiently extenuating.
Anyway, talk amongst yourselves…
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In basing your opinion, how much of the story do you know outside of what was in the media? Did you see the tape of the struggle? Did you see the taser being deployed? As far as I’m concerned justice was delivered and the officer should be sentenced to time served.
You’re echoing what I just said. I didn’t follow the case closely, and I have no idea “what could have gone before that could have been sufficiently extenuating.”
I go into cases documented by video with an urge to resist the tendency to be certain (which possibly is why I understand what Bret Stephens was saying in his column that got so many others upset).
This is also why I’m opposed to the death penalty. It’s based on the premise that one can be absolutely certain, and that bothers me…
Justice was delivered to whom? The dead guy? Did he get his “due”?
Maybe he shouldn’t have got out of his car and listened to the officer… odds are great that he’d be alive today. Once you start wrestling, reaching for weapons, etc… your odds go down dramatically.
Here’s the test: If you had shot someone fleeing after a struggle, would you be in trouble?
Police officers do not enjoy a different status simply by being law enforcement.
It was a bad shoot.
The state trial ended in a mistrial last December. So, yeah, South Carolina has a problem. It is good to see a guilty plea from this murderer; whether to a Federal civil rights charge or in state court for murder. The alternative would have been unpalatable.
Mark can you tell us some of the facts that you know that haven’t been shown on television? You’re convinced this guy is a “murderer” or in other words, guilty. So how did the struggle start? what lead up to the taser being pulled and deployed, did the dead guy try to get the cops gun away from him? These are things that haven’t been mentioned, all we’ve been shown is the tail end of the video.
Yes… but as much as I shy away from certainty, it’s hard to imagine ANYTHING that provides an exculpatory explanation for what we DO see on the video.
The man is 30 feet away, and getting farther away with each step. He is in NO way a threat to the shooter…
You’ve obviously never been in a life threatening situation. You don’t know how you’d react. What you say you’d do and what you actually would do are typically different.
Indeed, Brad may not be your Huckleberry. However, we require and expect more from law enforcement officers who are authorized to use force on our behalf.
Sure, maybe the officer’s “blood was up” following the struggle. Maybe he was excited, or scared, or whatever. That does not give him the right to shoot someone in a consequence-free manner.
If you know me, you know I’m an advocate for carrying. I enjoy shooting as a sport, as a discipline, and for protection. It’s also a huge responsibility. There’s so much talk about our Second Amendment rights, and I take a backseat to no one in that regard.
Nevertheless, there is a responsibility that goes with that right. It’s the responsibility to be knowledgeable about your firearm, to be safe with it, to use it in the right way at the right time. One mistake it often irreversible, and there is little margin for error.
Go read Jeff Cooper’s Principles of Personal Defense. It’s more like a long essay than a book – probably a 20 minute read.
“Sure, maybe the officer’s “blood was up” following the struggle. Maybe he was excited, or scared, or whatever. That does not give him the right to shoot someone in a consequence-free manner.”
Mitigating circumstances? Slager will serve prison time, perhaps a life sentence, for his bad decision, a “bad shoot.” Sentencing will be interesting …
What’s that you say, Johnny Ringo?
I’m so glad someone got this reference. 🙂
But we’re friends, right? If we were not friends, I do not think I could bear it.
Bryan, odds are you’ve never been in a life or death situation based on the actions of an aggressor toward you. You don’t know how you’d react. I have a CWP, have been around guns all my life… and I can’t tell you how I’d react. I’d like to think I’d do everything by the book but adrenalin and fear can take over in the blink of an eye.
Sure. The unknown is unknowable. Generally, I don’t believe that anyone “rises to the occasion” in such a situation. My thoughts are that everyone defaults to their level of training. That’s why training and having the right mindset is 90% of the matter.
While there’s certainly a human element involved, I (personally) don’t think it’s reasonable to claim that someone was in fear of their life or substantial bodily harm from someone running away, even if it was after a struggle. Like I always, say: your mileage may vary. That’s just where I come down on it.
That’s right, it can. And if, in your jacked-up state, you repeatedly shoot in the back a man who is running away from you as fast as he can, then you’ve committed homicide. It might not be murder in the first degree, but it would be something we can’t possibly allow in society.
By the way, this very situation is one of the reasons why a lot of folks are uncomfortable about so many people going around carrying deadly weapons — people get excited and lose control, as you are saying. They’re a lot less dangerous if they’re unarmed when that happens…
Just my personal opinion, I think him getting 20-25 years in federal custody is about right. As long as Scarlett Wilson has the Scott family in lockstep with her on this, that’s the most important thing (for her, in a political manner of speaking). If the victim’s family is out there raising hell, then Wilson will have a problem of a political nature next time she’s up.
The good news for Slager is that he’ll be in federal custody, they’ll probably send him somewhere far away to do his time, he’ll be in some form of protective custody (which the feds do well) since he’s a cop in prison. Eventually, he might get transferred somewhere less restrictive where it’s generally safer for people like him.
I haven’t seen anything on what the Scott family has to say about this deal. If they’re okay with it, then that’s something to take into consideration.
Ask combat veterans for specific details, unless they’ve been through multiple engagements most couldn’t tell you how many times they they fired their weapon. I know guys who went into Panama, one kid kept ejecting full magazines thinking that he had emptied them when in fact he never pulled the trigger once, another guy on a SAW froze the first time he faced the enemy and put about 200 rounds into the guy. He doesn’t remember pulling the trigger.
I’m going to use this as an excuse to once again mention Dave Grossman’s fascinating book, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society.
He tells of something that the people who cleaned up after the battle of Gettsburg found. Many, many of the dead were holding rifles that they had loaded four or five times without ever firing, so that the loads were stacked up in the barrel practically to the muzzle.
This sort of thing happened because most men have a tremendous aversion to killing others. Historically, most soldiers did not fire their weapons in battle, and most who did did not shoot to kill. But the social pressure to fight was huge when soldiers were surrounded by their comrades. So some guys kept reloading as fast as they could, so it SEEMED like they were fighting. They just didn’t shoot.
This changed after WWII. By Vietnam, U.S. military training had largely overcome the aversion to shooting to kill. So our soldiers would shoot and kill without hesitation in combat situations, and suffer the psychological consequences later…
My husband is a police officer, and he is adamant that it was a bad shoot, no matter what happened earlier in their encounter.
Not a satisfying ending for a brutal killing of an unarmed man in the back.
The fact is, you view this shooting as some 1970’s Southern small town sheriff’s office movie and not reality. Had he been armed yet concealed how would you have viewed the shooting? From what I’ve heard and read, the officer didn’t know if he was armed, the guy was going for his taser and/or pistol and was wrestling with him on the ground and not fleeing. It wasn’t until the guy got off him and ran did he have a chance to stop him. What was he supposed to do, keep running after him again and go through the whole scenario of wrestling and trying to keep him from getting his gun? There’s a lot of second guessing by people who have and will never face this situation. Like it’s been said in the first trial, “Most people don’t run for being pulled over for a broken taillight.”
“What was he supposed to do, keep running after him again and go through the whole scenario of wrestling and trying to keep him from getting his gun?”
Well…yeah.
Scott left his car and fled on foot. Call it in and chase him. If you lose him, you know where he lives since you have his car and registration information. Cops are supposed to chase a suspect if he flees. That’s part of the job description.
You can’t just shoot a guy ’cause you’re too damn lazy to chase him.
What would you expect to happen the second time you caught him? This time just maybe he does succeed in taking your gun away from you.
Defense lawyer????
Where exactly are you going with your question? Do you actually think that consideration justifies killing the man at a moment when he posed ZERO threat?
I mean, if you’re so terrified of the man, let him keep running…
“Had he been armed yet concealed how would you have viewed the shooting? From what I’ve heard and read, the officer didn’t know if he was armed, the guy was going for his taser and/or pistol and was wrestling with him on the ground and not fleeing.”
If Slager had shot Scott while they were wrestling for a gun/taser or whatever, that would be an entirely different fact pattern. Entirely different. If you’re wrestling with someone for a weapon, then I think it’s reasonable to say that you’re in fear of your life or substantial bodily harm. However…..he didn’t shoot him during the struggle.
Slager shot Scott after:
1. The struggle ended and Scott disengaged.
2. Scott began fleeing.
3. Scott was roughly 30 feet away.
4. Scott was not looking back and was therefore shot in the back.
There’s a world of difference between shooting someone you’re grappling with over a weapon, and shooting someone running away from you in the back at 30 feet.
All of which is so patently obvious (Bryan’s points 1 through 4) that I can’t believe we’re arguing about it…
“Like it’s been said in the first trial, “Most people don’t run for being pulled over for a broken taillight.””
Sure. I totally agree. Nevertheless, if you flee that isn’t a license for the cops to open up on you like it’s Iwo Jima.
Next we’ll be hearing that he was running because he was late for reading to the blind or late to help an old woman across the street.
It continues to escape me why anyone thinks the reason he was running matters…
Is it common in federal cases where the defendant is charged in both fed and state for the plea deal to include dropping charges at the state level? How do they even agree on that?
Seems remarkable that he went from avoiding a life sentence because of one, likely racist, pro-cop juror to getting only 5 years in federal prison via a plea deal while totally avoiding homicide charges.
The man has his back to Slager and is running away. He was unarmed. I see no justification for shooting. Even if there had been a struggle it was over.
And he was seen planting the taser. And there was no attempt to tray his injuries. And he lied about what happened before the video was released. And most of the white jurors agreed this was a crime of some type. But all we have is this bland civil rights charge. Sad.
Treat his injuries
I bet bud could do a series of tasks, asked to explain what he just did minutes later and not get it 100% correct. Has anyone ever gone through the experiment of describing someone. who just did something during an event? 90% of the people can’t remember anything about the person.
Your point?
The man was in his 50s, he was not fleet of foot, he had his back to Slager. Slager was shown holding his gun and clearly aiming in the video. What happened before the video is to me, irrelevant. The video itself is enough to indict, convict, and sentence Slager. I understand the mentality of a police officer under duress as well as one can without actually being one. My brother and brother-in-law along with a few friends were part-time police officers due to a shortage in the cities where they lived. They were trained to call for back-up in an instance like this one and not draw their weapon and shoot at someone fleeing a traffic stop unless there were mitigating circumstances.
The fleeing man did not have a gun, he did not have a weapon of any kind, and yes, the video clearly showed Slager placing the taser next to Mr. Scott’s dead body. Now, who the hell can defend Slager’s actions. I understand the fog of war or however one wants to depict the situation but damn, a slow 50 year old man running away is shot in the back and the first jury couldn’t reach a guilty verdict?
With power comes responsibility and police officers do wield a lot of power. The moment Slager drew his weapon and aimed it at Mr. Scott’s back when he was at least 50 feet away, he abdicated his responsibility as a trained police officer. Why not a warning shot or a shot at his legs? Why a kill shot and don’t try to say an aimed pistol at someone’s back is not meant to be a kill shot especially when one considers the time Slager had served on the police force.
No excuses, none whatsoever for Slager’s actions.
Well said Bart. I would just add police officers are trained to deal with stressful situations. Slagger either forgot his training or ignored it.
Reflected in Richard’s comments is the very sort of twist-yourself-in-knots-to-favor-the-police attitude that led to the mistrial in this case back in December – which in turn led to the present state-of-affairs.