On Tuesday, a video surfaced of an officer shooting a man in the back while he was running away. The officer was white, the man was black. This is turning into a common situation. White officer, killing an unarmed black male. This entire thing is deeper than race. It has to due with the police officers having the liberty to do whatever they want with no one to answer to. Yes, of course, I acknowledge that there are good police officers out there. I applaud those police officers. The focus needs to be on the ones that do things like this. They are trained on how to handle situations like this. Shooting unarmed people, especially if they are running away, is unacceptable. Surely the officer could have gotten him down in a better way. If the issue was that the male was faster than the cop, well, then maybe we need stricter physical tests for the cops to pass.
Michael Slager, the 33 year old officer charged in this case, said he feared for his life because his stun gun was taken by the suspect, Walter Scott. The “trained” police officer, was unable to protect himself from the suspect, this is the first issue. Police need to be trained better. If he can’t protect his own stun gun, what can he protect? The video showed that Scott was shot 8 times while running away. 8 times. EIGHT TIMES. After being shot once, that is enough to put the man down, or at least do enough damage for the cop to be able to stop the suspect from running away. Shooting someone that is UNARMED and RUNNING AWAY eight times is something that should frighten the civilians. This is a major example of incompetency and trigger happiness.
This isn’t the first case that happened like this. Of course we had the Ferguson shooting and the NYC choking case. These events have raised the nationwide question of whether or not police officers are too quick to use deathly force. Of course I am in the party that believes that the police are becoming an issue. They are supposed to be trained in this. There is no way that they’re training didn’t cover what to do in this scenario. If it didn’t, then the entire training system needs to be scrutinized, picked apart, and supervised by someone that knows how to protect and serve.
North Charleston is one of South Carolina’s biggest cities. It has a population of about 100,000, almost half of that being made up of African-Americans and only thirty-seven percent being white. The police department, however, is 80 percent white. This is another issue that I see. Cops in urban, African-American heavy areas are going to be more scared, and thus more likely to use deathly force if filled threatened. These are the types of areas that need more black police officers. The black community in the areas feel a great distrust for white police officers. Having more black police officers to come in and calm down the people of the area would go a far way in preventing more things like this from happening. It would make the police officers more comfortable, since they won’t have that same fear, while also making the citizens more comfortable since they won’t have to worry about becoming a news story.
The most interesting thing about this is that the police officer is very clearly seen as going back where the initial scuffle occurred and picking something up. He then goes and places the item near the body. It is unclear if this is the stun gun that the officer said that Scott had, but it wouldn’t surprise me. The stun gun would have been very good protection from him seeing any legal charges. With that now in question, something else is going to be needed to prevent him from possibly facing charges.
The FBI and the branch of police officers are investigating the case, but I currently don’t have high hopes for this case. Just like the Wilson and NYC case, the prosecutor has worked with the cops for years. This doesn’t make any sense. If the whole “fair trail” thing is being sought after, the case needs to be made by someone that doesn’t directly know the person that the charges are against. An outside prosecutor needs to come in and be the one to make the case against the police officer. Logically, the prosecutor will be very hesitant to make a sound case against the people that he works with. Someone outside is necessary.
As more cases like this pop up, there will be a bigger distrust for police officers. I don’t blame the people either. Cops are way to willing to pull the trigger multiple times although the scenario doesn’t call for it. Hopefully we see justice for this scenario.
When I first saw the footage of this instance of police brutality, I thought, “Those have to be rubber bullets. There’s no way that police officer would have shot a man in the back EIGHT times if he used real bullets.” Then the video kept playing, Walter Scott fell forward, and the horror of the situation was realized. It was absolutely appalling. I was also amazed at Slager’s response after shooting Scott. Scott had fallen to the ground, with no signs of trying to stop his fall. There was no sign of resistance, yet Slager still demanded Scott to put his hands behind his back. Sadly, Scott was unable to move.
This instance is one that will make a lot of people consider what needs to be done about the police force. While race plays an obvious issue in this case, as well as the two you brought up, I think this issue has extended itself past race. Regulations and revisions need to be made to the way police officers react in “high stress” situations. The use of nonlethal, yet effective weaponry (like rubber bullets) needs to be implemented, and officers need to stop being so quick to their belts for their guns. The video clearly showed that Scott was easily within reach to catch on foot, but instead Slager pulled out his gun, and murdered an unarmed man. I sincerely hope we do not have to face another one of these occurrences.
When I first saw the footage of this instance of police brutality, I thought, “Those have to be rubber bullets. There’s no way that police officer would have shot a man in the back EIGHT times if he used real bullets.” Then the video kept playing, Walter Scott fell forward, and the horror of the situation was realized. It was absolutely appalling. I was also amazed at Slager’s response after shooting Scott. Scott had fallen to the ground, with no signs of trying to stop his fall. There was no sign of resistance, yet Slager still demanded Scott to put his hands behind his back. Sadly, Scott was unable to move.
This instance is one that will make a lot of people consider what needs to be done about the police force. While race plays an obvious issue in this case, as well as the two you brought up, I think this issue has extended itself past race. Regulations and revisions need to be made to the way police officers react in “high stress” situations. The use of nonlethal, yet effective weaponry (like rubber bullets) needs to be implemented, and officers need to stop being so quick to their belts for their guns. The video clearly showed that Scott was easily within reach to catch on foot, but instead Slager pulled out his gun, and murdered an unarmed man. I sincerely hope we do not have to face another one of these occurences.
When i saw this online, i honestly did not believe it. Its like cops are trying to make themselves look bad. IN most states, even if someone has broken into your house, you cannot shoot them if they’re running away. The problem with this police officer doing this is that it just reignites the fire that was already ablaze. People are actually looking for reasons to hate cops now, and this officer just gave them one of the best reasons ever – and why 8 times? Ridiculous.
Stories like this are absolutely devastating, and I would completely agree with you that cops nowadays are often taking it too far, and getting away with pulling the trigger way more than they should because of the line of work that they are in. with cases like this continuing to pop up, I really hope some new policies start to be put into place so that we can see an end to police brutality.