South Carolina cop charged with murder in shooting

The earliest reports -- working off the officer's contention that Scott was trying to take his taser -- said that even after a taser is fired, it can be used as a stun gun to incapacitate someone. So I think that's going to be the basis of the defense: Scott grabbed for the taser, the officer didn't see it as it dropped to the ground, and then he felt his life was in danger because he thought Scott still had the taser.

It could work. People really don't like to throw cops in the slammer.

 

Running back 30 feet to pick up the Taser, then throwing it next to the body looks pretty hinky.

 

Wait, maybe the officer was "standing his ground?"

 

Under my theory that would be described as a panic move. Maybe a lesser offense, maybe the jury takes sympathy.

 

Is that generalization still true, or have events in the past year changed that? I have no idea how you'd be able to measure a change or shift, if there was one. I'm just throwing the question out.

 

Welp, this provides a pretty good case for cameras on cops, eh?

Luckily, this one was filmed. Otherwise, this guy probably had a good chance of getting off.

 

Forensics still would have shown him shooting the guy in the back. And from far enough away that there certainly were no powder burns.

 

He'll walk anyway. Book it.

 

Interesting take from Greg Howard at Deadspin:

The Police Are America's Terrorists

I would argue that police culture which values elitism, bullying and conformity is at least equally responsible for bad actions as racism.

 

A lazy person that shouldnt be a cop and shouldnt be allowed to own a gun.

Good luck to him in jail.

 

I'm pretty much in agreement with OT on this one.

Cameras won't change police officers' behavior, particularly if they can just turn them on and off whenever they like (as most current body cameras allow).

Police departments need better training, particularly as it relates to de-escalating situations. They need better psychological screening of recruits to identify those with anger issues, racist tendencies, and other psychological and emotional factors that could lead to such incidents. There are a lot of root causes to these kinds of incidents that need to be addressed. The cameras might score some political points because people will think their local government is DOING something to stop the problem, but realistically, cameras won't solve anything.

 

The camera would have had as much a chance of surviving this incident as Aaron Hernandez's cell phone did his incident.