There was a tail light out in the rear of the car he was driving and Walter Scott was behind on his child support. Two relatively benign issues drove Walter Scott from the car to run from the police in fear of being arrested. Walter Scott was not in violation of any major felony that involved violence, weapons or assault on a police officer. He was afraid of being arrested and what that might mean for his life. He ran. He ran from fear of arrest and jail.
The fear Walter Scott felt was irrational fear, yet it overwhelmed his common sense and instill dread about his life. That fear was instilled in him by experiences by other African Americans confronted by Caucasian police. The fear that drives African American men to flee for their own lives is completely irrational, but, it exists no less.
I don't know what the USA has to do to prevent others like Walter Scott from placing themselves in a compromising circumstance than the one they are facing when confronted. I have seen such heinous use by police officers of their weapons and this is one of them.
There was another instance that upset me, when a man, an African American man, in a wheelchair with a gun in his lap, was gunned down because police had the right to do it. There was no reason for the police to kill a basically helpless man, except, their training stated as long as they tell someone to drop their gun they have the right to shoot that person if the gun remains in the person's possession with potential danger. There was no way that man sitting in a wheelchair was going to cause any harm to the many police officers surrounding him.
The same type of incident was carried out with Tamir Rice. The child never even understood the words the police was stating as the police car pulled up next to him. He was innocently playing with a toy gun in a park when a police officer decided it was okay to use the gun on a child. The police officer rather use a gun out of proper police procedure than actually treat Tamir as a citizen, WITH RIGHTS and try to understand the circumstances to disarm and/or disable a potential shooting.
That is not police work, that is an issue of some of the poorest police work ever recorded and the easy way out. See, Walter Scott required a police officer to call for assistance while he gave chase. Tamir Rice needed an officer to stop, with weapon at the ready, to find out if this was a life or death situation. Even the person making the phone call eventually stated, before Tamir was shot, I think that gun is a toy. The person reporting the incident stated that to a dispatcher. I cannot imagine how the person reporting Tamir feels today. I don't imagine it is easy to simply ignore it.
There is absolutely no reason for Tamir to be dead. It was technically correct for the officer to use the gun, but, it was very sloppy police work that killed an innocent person.
The police work being conducted in the USA is very troubling. It is knee jerk reaction to situations and circumstances. The police work today are laced with lies reported and signed off. A reporting that treats the citizen as if a ferocious criminal that no one could control and as if an animal on the run. Heck, they even use tranquilizers on dangerous animals among society.
I blame the police unions in instructing their officers to use whatever force is legally before them. That type of advise is not good advise, it is not advise police should listen to and it is advise to justify murder to prevent costs for defense of police officers. If the officers acted as they should in assessing the situation for what is was the idea of charging a police officer with any crime would not even be an issue.
Michael Slager would not be facing prison if he bothered to assess the situation. Officers would not be facing charges, investigations and potentially prison if they actually conducted effective police work and assessed the situation. Walter Scott was no threat to anyone, but, himself because he could not control his fear of police officers and the temporary hold in jail he would have faced.
There are no reasons for any of these killings. The awareness began with Michael Brown, but, it was occurring long before them. It needs to stop and good police work replacing police with the right to kill.
My continued sympathies for the Scott family and friends and all African American families that have lost members to very poor police work.
December 7, 2017By Med Kinnard
One by one, (click here) relatives of the late Walter Scott urged a judge to mete out a significant punishment for Michael Slager, the white former police officer who fatally shot Scott, an unarmed black man, in the back after a 2015 traffic stop.
Through tears, Scott's family told Slager they felt sorrow for him and the loss his young children would feel in his absence. In the end, a judge sentenced Slager to 20 years in prison, giving the Scott family the justice they had sought ever since a stranger came to them with the shocking video of Scott being killed.
"I forgive Michael Slager. I forgive you," Scott's mother, Judy, said as she turned toward her son's killer. "I pray for you, that you would repent and let Jesus come in your life."
Sitting just a few feet away, Slager wiped tears from his eyes and mouthed: "I'm sorry."
The punishment wrapped up a case that became a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement. Slager, 36, is one of only a few police officers to go to prison for a fatal shooting, and his sentence is by far the stiffest since the shootings came under extra scrutiny in recent years.
Attorneys for the former North Charleston officer said he shot the 50-year-old Scott in self-defense after the two fought and Scott grabbed Slager's stun gun. They said race didn't play a role in the shooting and Slager never had any "racial animus" toward minorities....
