To Serve And Protect

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...l-request-cop-who-shot-walter-scott/94992510/

The case was ruled a mistrial by the judge. This bad apple needs to be shipped away for good.

 

His main defense is Walter Scott was grabbing at his taser. Therefore, he felt threatened and had to use lethal force to neutralize the threat.

The video evidence says otherwise.

 

Ah... yeah... If a cop messes up, I'll be one to say so... As far as the trial went, if they went for "Murder" PC 187, he wouldn't get convicted of it because it wasn't murder. It was a homicide, but murder is something completely different than Manslaughter.

Here's what I think happened, despite that juror's statement. Instead of going for manslaughter, which they should've went for, they decided to get him for murder to make an example of him. The DA filed the charges and went for it. I'm sure somewhere down the line they knew they weren't going to get the conviction, because the jury is made full aware what the definition of murder is.... They (the jurors, and probably the DA), started the see his action was not lining up to be murder...

I'm not defending the cop, he screwed up big time... He was outta policy, was fired over it, and will probably never get a job as an officer again due to the negligence... But, I think the DA screwed up if they wanted to charge him.... They probably filed the murder charges under the immense pressure from political and social forces because of the false racist narrative that currently exists between the police and black citizens... Sometime during the trial, one of these two scenarios happened.... The DA realized they weren't going to get him for murder, and tried to make a deal, they refused the deal knowing full and well he wasn't going to get convicted of murder. Or, they never offered a deal, and tried their best to make an example out of him by their own choice or from political pressure and failed.

If I remember correctly, they filed the murder charge rather quickly... This is why I'm totally against releasing body camera footage before the DOJ and other agencies investigation is completed... People see the video, cringe and cry murder or something else, it causes pressure from the media, citizens and politicians before the facts even come out. Looking at the footage, I didn't see murder, I saw a man, I believe he was a veteran too, which is sad, panic under relatively slow stress, and act impulsively and shot a suspect who he had stopped. That, is not murder, but a type of manslaughter, which is what the DA should've went for in the first place.

They'll probably go for manslaughter if they decide to charge him again, but it's already tainted because of the previous trial where they failed at convicting him of murder.

 

Him planting the taser is strong case for premeditation, because you can argue he knew what he was doing was wrong, but did it anyways, because he figured the benefit of doubt is with him seeing as how a lot of people have this childhood image of police officers as flawless champions of justice.

 

I don't know how anybody can look at the video of the shooting and conclude manslaughter. Walter Scott immediately started running from the officer. Slager didn't even try to chase after him. He simply pulled out his gun, meticulously aiming the weapon at Scott and shot him in the back. After shooting Scott, he calmly walked over and handcuffed the body. Cold-blooded murder. Plain and simple. The attempt to cover up the murder afterwards is icing on the cake.

 

Well thats the issue, you're speaking from emotions. Sadly, legal context and facts don't care about your feelings. And no, I'm not defending him, dude should be charged, but because of political and social pressure, they rushed it, and failed to convict.

I don't see racism here, I wasn't in the guy's head at the time, were you?

And BLM started with the lie in Fuergson... didn't start with this guy.... If it did, I'd probably take them a bit more seriously

 

Like I've stated, the shoot was bad... Don't know what the cop was thinking, what caused him to even think about drawing his weapon... It was so fast...

Anyways, here's the legal definition of murder..

n. the killing of a human being by a sane person, with intent, malice aforethought (prior intention to kill the particular victim or anyone who gets in the way)

It's a bit longer than that, but its the meat of it. The DA would have to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Slager was a sane person, who's intention that day was to kill a man, and he would've had to have some malice adorethought.... That's pretty damn hard to prove in a court of law when it's this type of encounter.....

Here is what he's guilty of:

Manslaughter
The unjustifiable, inexcusable, and intentional or unintentional killing of a human being without deliberation, premeditation, and malice. The unlawful killing of a human being without any deliberation, which may be involuntary, in the commission of a lawful act without due caution and circumspection.

 

Btw, I'm trying to look for an article regarding this juror who would put in a not guilty verdict no matter what evidence was presented to him/her... Anyone got one?

http://hotair.com/archives/2016/12/...-of-michael-slager-for-shooting-walter-scott/

Read this article, pretty interesting and good legal questions... They'll try him again, its not over Mr. Slager just yet. Don't see anything about a juror that would vote not guilty no matter what...

 

I think while their may not have been premeditation, there was deliberation and intent.

And that qualifies for 2nd degree murder vs 1st which includes premeditation.

The guy is running away. I would understand if he was running away and firing a weapon at the officer, but that was not the case. He could've fired a shot or two to bring him down, but he unloaded into his back AND he failed to care for him after the fact. That's completely deliberate.

 

There are two types of manslaughter, voluntary and involuntary.

It is obvious that it was not involuntary. Voluntary manslaughter typically involves provocation.

Did the victim's actions of grabbing the stun gun cause the officer to kill him? I think that would've happened at that moment.

But since the victim was running away, it will be a question of whether or not the officer had enough time to "cool down" from the provocation.

There is evidence for second-degree murder, but it will lean more for Voluntary Manslaughter most likely.

 

Yeah, for this type of incident, premeditation is a tall order to prove... Especially since our job requires to interact with people, stop people for any and all crimes, etc... Manslaughter time usually differs, depends on the DA and judge... But just keep in mind brother, like I said... Cop is def guilty, should be punished... But this is the same court system that allows Felons to go free after violating parole by beating up their gf's, have a gun in their possession, allows criminals who were convicted of attempted murder to roam free after only 7 years of time served.... It's a messed up justice system. If you could barely punish career criminals, could only think how hard it must be to prosecute a cop who legitimately should be convicted of a crime...

 

Is there an article about this lone juror? The link I provided tells a story where the jurors were close to conviction, then were split at one point, nothing about a lone juror./