At Guns Save Life, we call a turd a turd.
A recent (as in days) shooting in South Carolina is a turd, no doubt about it. The cop claims self-defense in discharging his pistol in the course of a scuffle. Supposedly the suspect – a fifty-year-old man who is overweight – gained control of the cop’s stun gun and the cop said he was in fear for his life.
Then a video surfaces showing the cop backing away from the suspect. The suspect takes off running from the cop. Well, running might be the wrong word. I should say sauntering away from the cop as he was running at about the speed of a brisk walk because he was obviously no Carl Lewis, the famous track star. The cop draws his gun, and while the suspect is running away, proceeds to fire off a series of shots until the almost senior citizen collapses maybe 40 or more feet away from the cop.
Even more damning to the cop was the fact that the victim of the cop’s violence was probably 18′ or more away, making no effort to turn to face the cop or cause the cop harm, when Mr. Police Officer opened up on him.
This one is an easy call: Bad shoot. And now the (former?) cop faces 30 years in prison.
WASHINGTON (NY Times) — A white police officer in North Charleston, S.C., was charged with murder on Tuesday after a video surfaced showing him shooting in the back and killing an apparently unarmed black man while the man ran away.
The officer, Michael T. Slager, 33, said he had feared for his life because the man had taken his stun gun in a scuffle after a traffic stop on Saturday. A video, however, shows the officer firing eight times as the man, Walter L. Scott, 50, fled. The North Charleston mayor announced the state charges at a news conference Tuesday evening.
Leave it to the New York Times to inject race into the incident starting with the second word of the story. Why? It sells papers, even though there is nothing to suggest race played a role in the incident.
It’s as if they’ve fired the proverbial starting gun for the race of race hustlers to rush to North Charleston, S.C. to inflame the situation, instead of simply calling it a case of criminal misconduct on the part of a cop against a citizen.
We have said that cops are like gun owners: The vast, overwhelming majority are good, decent people. Once in a while you’ll run across one that’s a criminally bad one.
Looks like we’ve found one.
As for the racial component: We suspect those injecting race into this are doing so for monetary gain. The list of suspects will be long:
** Lawyers seeking to enrich themselves from civil lawsuits. Look for Parks and Crump and the National Bar Association to make an appearance soon, if not already. Who are they?
Thanks to an attorney in St. Louis posting a comment at the Truth About Guns, we have much of the answer:
1) Darryl Parks, who was one of the attorneys representing St. Trayvon Martin’s family, was recently president of the NBA. His law partner is Crump. Crump’s dad John was exec director of NBA for 25+ yrs.
2) Means is currently president and very close to Parks and Crump and stands to gain $$ from any civil suits
3) Crump is president-elect and used St. Trayvon’s death to jump in, and instead of spending several years like other leaders, moving up the ranks, and move from member at large, to VP, to President elect in 3 yrs.
4) The NBA only has about 2,200 paying members and is essentially broke, surviving on corporate donations. The “representing 60,000″ stuff is like the NRA says it represents all gun owners vs the 5M who actually pay
5) Sunny Hostin, who parades herself on CNN as a legal analyst and gave the wrong info during Zimmerman’s trial for killing St. Trayvon, is an NBA member and close to Parks and Crump. Funny CNN hasn’t put her to the side because of her close personal ties.
6) Al Sharpton is part of the shakedown with the NBA. He gets a cut of whatever fees get earned as a “consultant” and the NBA gets a referral.
** The floundering mainstream media, who will gin up the racial angle for viewers/readers to command additional revenue for advertising.
** The race-hustling “reverends” who will descend upon the locals, passing the collection plate, to feed upon the locals like vultures.
That’s just for starters.
As for the cop: You might want to invest in some soap on a rope.
Here’s the video:
Ability? They look the same size and the victim is older. I do not see a differential in size and strength giving rise to ability.
Opportunity? The victim is far away from the officer when the shots are fired. Any ability cannot be brought to bear on the officer. No opportunity.
Jeopardy? He’s running away from the officer at the moment of the shots. That does not bespeak of an intent to harm the officer.
Absent ability, opportunity, and jeopardy, this was not a reasonable use of deadly force.
You sound like had a decent class like the one my wife and I took.
It seems to me that Slager’s gun should have been holstered when the perp was making an attempt to get away. If he had shot while tussling with the suspect on the ground, that might have been justifiable. This wasn’t – for all the reasons mentioned above.
I read a little more about Slager’s initial statement. This guy is a lying piece of crap. Said be provided aid. Liar. Said he was in fear of his life. Liar.
How many other things has he lied about in his career.
Damn shame a man had to die to get this bad cop off the street. Hopefully they’ll fire any of Slager’s fellow cops who lied in their reports about the incident as well.
Be a damn shame if Slager got bunked with a big black guy in prison.
It’s a good lesson in how not to handle a situation like this.
Bad, bad, bad shoot. If you read some other articles on it and watch the video, you’ll see the cop picked up his tazer and then carried it over to the body and casually dropped it. So you’ve got bad shoot, lying about it, and manipulating evidence.
Thanks goodness somebody had this on video. And yet there are those that still want to make it a crime to record cops …
You beat me to it J.C. Another reason not to believe what you see in the news for at least 24 -48 hours. It makes me want to get a “smart phone” in case I wanted to film something like this.
Yes, the cop is a turd. But, the victim is no less a turd for running in the first place. Just what do these people think they are going to gain by running? We see it over and over again on “Cops” and other shows.
I think it was the victim’s mother praising the fact that there is video of it. I suspect that is only because she will now be guaranteed a windfall. Lookout gambling boat, here I come!
Let’s not blame the victim here, okay?
People do dumb things around cops all the time. Does that mean we will tolerate cops killing them for it? Absolutely not.
To make matters worse, the cop tampered with the crime scene and then made a patently false statement about what happened.
I’m sure I’m not the only one thinking this wasn’t this cop’s first rodeo at tampering with crime scenes and writing deceptive reports.
John
Blaming the victim was not my intent.
I will never know what goes through a cop’s mind when they have to deal with all the people they deal with, any one of whom could take their life.
Why do you assume he has tampered with crime scenes before?
If we were to see you do something wrong, are we to assume that means you’ve done it before?
KK, you’d not say that a murderer is more of a turd than the murdered?
Not that it matters what you say. You betray the darkness of your heart with your hateful characterization of the victim’s mother.
Just like there are a few bad apple cops, I guess there are a few bad apple GSLers out there… at least one.
How is it hateful?
It seems that in all of these instances, one of the first things mentioned is a lawsuit, before the victim is even in the ground. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure I’d be filing a lawsuit as well, if it were me, but it would be down on the list, not one of the first things I’d be concerned with.
On the other hand, if this woman was solicited by the lawyer, which I know happens as I have experienced it, then shame on him.
The story on Fox News says that he came there a day after the shooting to represent the family. The body was hardly cold at that point. Can’t you let them mourn before you swoop in?
The story also says the victim had a history of arrests.
A turd is a turd. Does it matter that much what degree?
Al “Not so Sharp” Sharpton is on the case already.
Rev. Al Sharpton called for national policing legislation akin to the Civil Rights Act this morning at the kickoff his National Action Network’s annual convention, just after the arrest of a white South Carolina police officer for murder in the shooting of an unarmed black man.
“There must be national policy and national law on policing,” Mr. Sharpton said. “We can’t go from state to state, we’ve got to have national law to protect people against these continued questions.”
He’s borderline illiterate, of course:
http://freebeacon.com/culture/al-sharpton-versus-the-teleprompter-volume-1/
Resist we much.
THanks for the laugh Dyspeptic. My wife asked me why I was laughing so hard.
Then I played it for her. She laughed so hard she started coughing.
Sam
Fellers, there’s enhanced video out now. If it is true, it shows the black feller not only DID take the cop’s tazer, but DEPLOYED IT AGAINST him. Said video is available on Clash Daily.
It looks like most of you above owe an apology (as do I).
In hindsight, it now looks like a good shoot, and you’ll almost NEVER hear me say that in the case of a cop/killer.