When will the Police begin to Police the Police?
I am so glad we do have police officers.
I am so sad the honest honorable ones are bullied by the bad ones.
I am happy to see an officer sent to prison after murdering an unarmed man and trying to plant evidence against him.
I am sad that all the other officers over the years covered for this murderer.
I am glad the news is spreading about cop conviction.
I am sad the jury could not convict after seeing the video that convinced the judge of the murderous guilt.
7
This conviction is incredibly rare. Police usually shoot and kill with impunity.
According to a Bowling Green study there are about 1000 police shootings a year nationally.
Over a 12 year period, between 2005 & April, 2017 (about 12000 shootings occurred), only 80 officers were arrested on murder or manslaughter charges. And of those arrested only 28 were convicted of some type of crime (about 2 convictions/year on average). Everyone else got off.
The odds of an officer getting convicted for killing or wrongly shooting someone are on the order of 1 in 500 or less. They virtually always walk free.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/18/us/police-involved-shooting-cases/index.html
2
Yes!!!
3
Finally.
2
Why did he ran away?. I wouldn't do that and I am completely sure the police shall not kill me, the lesson is OBEY the police.
1
Wrong. The lesson is don't shoot unarmed citizens in the back and then plant a weapon on him.
5
Are you suggesting that running away from a police officer or disobeying police justifies death by cop?
7
Good, cops that break the law belong in prison just like regular people that break the law.
7
The key legal issue here is whether Slager committed manslaughter or murder. Having pled guilty, there is no question of his innocence.
The applicable definition of manslaughter is whether Slager "had no prior intent to kill and acted during the heat of passion, under circumstances that would cause a reasonable police officer to become emotionally or mentally disturbed to the point that they can't reasonably control their emotions."
The key question is whether Slager was provoked, and if so, whether the provocation was adequate. Concealing the crime can be considered, but that is obstruction of justice, a separate crime. Shooting someone in the back is obviously relevant, but what matters is whether even a flagrantly improper shooting was adequately provoked.
If there was provocation here, it was caused by the fight over the Taser. If Slager was so provoked by the fight that he was emotionally out of control when he shot Scott, that's manslaughter. If Slager acted intentionally he's a murderer. Twenty years fits murder, not manslaughter. And, again, he's guilty of one or the other. He admits he's not innocent.
Most people think this is a cut and dry case. I disagree. It depends on what Slager was thinking as much as it does on what he did. I'm not sure what he was thinking, and he gets the benefit of the doubt.
Good to have justice for this one man and his family, even though some will say it wasn't enough, and some will say that officers in other shootings have gone unpunished, and of course it doesn't give Mr. Scott his life back.
But it did send a very clear message to those few in the police community who would do such a thing; "if you do, you could be next", and that might well save the lives of other Mr. Scotts across the country.
Part of that message is that there are many, many cell phones out there and you never know when someone's recording. That may be a more effective deterrent than dash cams or body cams, because a bad officer will never knows who's watching and he can't just turn off a body cam and start shooting.
Perhaps 20 years wasn't enough, but this conviction accomplished so much more.
1
Mr. Scott was unarmed, speed-walking away from Slager, and was wanted only for minor traffic issues. He was likely aught up in the money factory that preys on the poor by jailing people for not paying fines they are unable to pay. Slager cooly and calmly unloaded his clip in the back of a man posing no harm, and then cooly and calmly planted evidence, all recorded for posterity. This is murder one, plain and simple.This officer should be capitally punished, which would have happened if the roles were reversed. Short of that, he should have been sentenced to life without parole. He has no business walking the streets with other humans.
4
We can have no idea how many people have been murdered by police over the last century . It was only the cell phone video that nailed this cop . Justice finally for one man after untold hundreds is a little victory for all of those who died before. But not enough.
Put cameras on all police , all the time.
4
“I forgive you, and I pray for you that you will repent and let Jesus come into your life,” Ms. Scott told the officer who killed her son. “Just as you are, he will forgive you.”
1
The forgiveness shown to Mr. Slager by Mr. Scott's mother, Judy Scott should be a beacon for all of us.
2
How is this guy going to fare in prison? Solitary confinement?
Justice gives us all hope.
But on another note, and I am sorry to interject this into the flow, but all those women who have claimed that they were afraid of losing their jobs, their potential professional/career paths, or otherwise, in respect to harassment, abuse, or worse of themselves or others, and claim that is *reasonable* excuse to stay silent...consider this case and what might have been the outcome had Mr Santana not filmed what he saw and not spoken up.
I can only imagine the fear of presenting evidence against a police officer. Blessings and long life to Mr. Santana; he did the right thing.
He did not remain silent.
2
We really need to rethink and review how we train police officers. Fear, prejudice, the too easy use of weaponry--"shoot" rather than "think"--have obliterated community policing. Being a police officer is a noble and dangerous profession but we need them to be thoroughly trained in all avenues of safety and not be afraid to weed out and dismiss people in training who are intrinsically incompatible with being officers.
Thank goodness this assault was videotaped as we all know it there would have been no conviction without it. After all, he was convicted on a a civil rights violation AFTER the jury couldn't convict him of killing Mr. Scott. It was the only good thing to come out of it.
2
I'm a little disturbed by the description of events in this article - why does it so completely outline Mr Slager's version of events and not bother with much description of how it differs with video? If there's some ambiguity about events in the video, why insert Slager's description as if it is the default facts? Why describe Slager's claim of existential fear (as if a Taser is a deadly weapon or something!) as if it held any water? This is slanted, again, toward accepting police versions of events at face value even though there is video evidence that contradicts much of what the policeman says. Stop it.
3
Here's another perspective: policing is a very stressful job. If someone runs away from the police, it will trigger the response that the person has indeed committed a crime. How can the police stop the flight? By calling them back? And indeed, the suspect had broken the law much more than just having a broken tail light. I was stopped once by a state trooper because one of my lights was out while driving at night. I did not get out of my car and run because I knew I had not committed any crime. And even if I had committed a crime, how can I possibly think I can get away from the police by foot? Again, the natural response is to flee. I don't see this situation as a racist response even though it's fashionable to interpret it as thus. And what about the lack of responsibility in child support? Isn't that a crime to abandon a child?
1
Yes, it is a crime to fail to pay child support. Yes, it is not wise to run from a police officer in any situation. Yes, it's unlikely you could get away from a cop on foot. All these may be true. The question is, in a country where every citizen has a right to due process and is innocent until PROVEN guilty, is it okay for a cop to kill a suspect in cold blood when there is no threat to life? That answer is a resounding no. That's the entire point of the police violence cases. It is NOT OKAY TO KILL non-violent suspects, no matter how distasteful any of their actions might be. The fact that people elaborately justify death at the hands of "frightened" cops by referring to the suspect's shortcomings is totally disturbing to me. The fact that the suspects most in danger of this death/justification combo are black is what makes this an undeniably racial issue.
7
His defenders say he "was prosecuted only because the politics of the moment demanded it." In other words, in another "moment," when the public wasn't fed up with the rash of shootings of unarmed black men, they think the incident would have been shrugged off. What a sad attitude, so telling of the resurgence of blatant, unapologetic racism and bigotry that has gained so much traction recently.
3
If he's truly sorry he will not appeal the decision. If he does appeal, we'll know he's not really sorry.
1
The pressures of being a policemen must be difficult - and thus training & selection of the men & women in blue must be the highest.
This video showed an ugly example of cold blooded murder - gunning down the victim in the back as he ran away from the officer. Slager should not have been a cop - and sadly Mr. Scott did not deserve to die.
1
"Other killings by police officers, from Baltimore to Charlotte, N.C., and Ferguson, Mo., have prompted protests and some changes in police practice, but have not led to convictions."
You forgot to mention that the "killings", for example, in Baltimore, did not "result in convictions" because the black prosecutor who indicted a number of white and black police officers, had her indictment thrown out on grounds of shoddy legal theories and inconsistent facts, by a black judge. In Ferguson, even the Obama Justice Department had to admit that Michael Brown, not ever the poster child for innocence, was shot dead when he was struggling with a cop for his gun.
The Slager shooting was different. While Scott's "wants and warrants" caused him to apparently briefly tussle with the cop and then flee, the cop clearly chased him and was in no personal danger from a fleeing unarmed man. Had Scott been armed, and posed a threat either to the officer or the public, the outcome of the case would have been different.
The Times' reporting, done with a broad brush here, does no justice to either the real issue of unjustified police shootings involving both white and black officers.
The Times, of course, will not juxtapose the Slager incident, with the five Dallas police officers murdered in cold blood by a shooter who, in part, used such "reporting" as justification for his murders.
And the black Dallas police chief that evening cried tears not of black or white, just blue.
2
Is the guy who recorded the event on his phone being harassed or prosecuted in any way? That is the other half of this pattern for the Blues.
4
I think he should go into witness protection program,
This is an example of not a black or white problem but a BLUE problem.
20
Finally, justice.
14
Finally, some good news.
11
Don't worry, a panel of three white conservative males will overturn this on appeal.
3
Good. He deserved a longer sentence than 20 years but it's a start.
7
As the mother of a young black man and the grandmother of his young black son, this verdict gives me some hope that the wheels of justice may be turning in the right direction.
19
Mr. Scott was unarmed and running away from this cop when he was shot in the back 8 times. If there hadn't been a passerby with a camera, the cop would have gotten away with it; everyone would have believed his story because that's the way it has always worked when poor and black people, the easiest kinds of people to sabotage, frame, arrest, convict, kill, encounter the cops.
Let's consider for a moment that people like Roy Moore was actually protected by the cops by decades, allowed to prey on kids for decades. Weinstein had a regular army of defenders to protect him, including ex-Mossad agents.
The justice system in this country is a sham; I've lost faith in it.
17
One of many things about Roy Moore I don't get - the guy was barred from a shopping mall for preying on young girls. Not allowed in a shopping mall - yet the people of Alabama and Republican Congress are willing to let him walk the halls of government.
We are descending into a very dark hole.
1
[[Michael T. Slager, the white police officer whose video-recorded killing of an unarmed black motorist in North Charleston, S.C., starkly illustrated the turmoil over racial bias in American policing, was sentenced on Thursday to 20 years in prison.]]
I think the killing starkly illustrated the lack of proper and sustained training of police in America.
You will always have police who are biased in one way or another. Maybe it's racial, maybe gender, maybe ethnic, racial, or whatever. But that's where training comes in. You have to train cops and medics and doctors and teachers and judges and etc and etc to operate beyond their biases.
I've seen "black" educators scream at "black" school children and when I questioned them the "black" educators said, "Well, that's what they get at home and that's all they respond to."
I saw a "black" teacher turn up the heat in a classroom and tell his "black" students to close their books, lay their heads down and take a nap.
Slager may or may not be a racist. We'll never really know.
But the shooting revealed that he was poorly trained and moving the taser to cover up the shooting revealed that he though that was something he could get away with...meaning he (probably) learned that move from someone on the job.
From experience I hereby state that I am afraid of cops and will never call them for any reason. This is on YOU "Law Enforcement".
1
It is good to see that a white policeman will finally serve time for killing an unarmed African American man and that defense arguments citing his fear, the stress of the situation and the risk of violence against him by other prisoners, as mitigating circumstances were not permitted to save him from jail.
His sentence of 20 years is much too short, particularly when compared with the sentence of 60 years Olympics team physician Larry Nassar received today for possession of child pornography and the additional years he may well receive for molesting the young women athletes in his care. Nassar does not deserve a day less while Slager deserves many years more.
Still we may hope that with this milestone sentencing more white policemen will think twice before needlessly killing people of color.
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No worries Mr. Slager. Ask the president Trump for the pardon, I am sure he will grant it.
8
Anyone who saw that tape of the cold gunning down of a fleeing man knows it was murder.
When the police can murder and not face life, we're all in real danger.
8
We can debate all day long what went through Mr. Slager's mind when he opened fire on Mr. Scott. But doing so is irrelevant to the real issue at hand.
Thankfully, the judge made clear that shooting and killing an unarmed man running away from you, no matter his color, *is* murder.
8
slager attempting to cover his crime by dropping the taser gun next to Mr. Scott's dead body, shows exactly what slager is-- a murderer. and it is a absolute disgrace that judge norton decided to go the coward's route and not give slager a life sentence. eternal shame, also, to those that voted not guilty in the mistrial. slager will be out of jail in his 50's, the same age that Mr. Scott was when he was assassinated. That irony should not be lost on anyone. Especially slager.
15
20 years in exchange for a man's life. Mr. Slager won't be with his family either. If Feidin Santana hadn't captured the murder on his cell phone, Slager would be patrolling the Charleston streets today. God bless you for your loss, Ms. Scott.
5
Justice has won out over the Police.
3
In this ONE case and only because there was a video.
1
As someone who was born and raised in Oklahoma, which was not a Confederate state only because it was not a state at the time, I know the mentality of this officer only too well. He was a classic racist.
Note that a South Carolina jury failed to convict the man. As another reader pointed out, this wasn't a close call. He shot the man in the back while he was running away and then lied about it. The South is still the South. Juries in the South, especially the Deep South, haven't changed much since the end of Reconstruction, when it comes to white on black crime. Racism is in their bone marrow.
8
"Feel good" justice at best. Just another murderer serving a sentence- does little or nothing to improve race relations. The only way to bridge the racial divide is to eliminate that TERRIBLE WORD from our lexicon. We need to make that word as obscure as old English. We know the devastation that word brings when uttered by a white- until that same level of shock and mortification is felt by African Americans when they use that word with EACH OTHER--- Then we're a long way from fixing and healing the race problem in this country. To defeat racism- it requires teamwork.
1
It would seem to wise to have Slager's full career carefully re-scrutinized. It's probably rare that you murder a man so effortlessly, then calmly and coherently lie about it in detail, without having had some practice in committing some very bad behavior.
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This only happened because of the Video. Let's just admit that. Otherwise, it would be the usual Lies, false reports and cover -up. Keeps those videos COMING, folks. Thank you.
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You don't shoot someone in the back, multiple times and expect to get away with it. You shouldn't.
7
Is this a federal conviction? Concerned about a Trump pardon.
3
This person got what they deserved, but the question remains should he have never worn the uniform or did he become that way over time from wearing the uniform.
7
May the family of Mr. Scott have some semblance of justice and order delivered to them in peace.
8
Glad to see justice finally getting served in one of these cases.
Maybe this will prompt other cops to think before shooting unarmed civilians.
3
Lives changed forever. And for what? Twenty years to think about that.
Slager had no place being a police officer.
3
The most touching part of this story is at the end when Mrs. Scott whispers "I know". It is amazing she is able to do that. Mrs. Scott thank you for showing the rest of us what it means to be like Christ
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Slager is going to say anything to make nice, Mrs Scott is delusional about sky daddies and mind control. I really can't stand these people spewing forgiveness to cold blooded killers, they are just grandstanding.
Officer-involved shootings are virtually always prosecuted as manslaughter. In federal court, the recommendation of the probation office, which is viewed as neutral, is generally given great weight. So is the fact that the jury was close to a manslaughter verdict.
For a police officer to commit murder, he must totally disregard his duties and act like a street criminal. The fact that the officer shot an unarmed man in the back does not make it murder. Nor does an attempted cover-up. The issue is what the officer's intent was. Did he want the victim dead for no justifiable reason? That's what murder is. That didn't happen. There will be an appeal and this travesty of justice will be corrected.
Of course that is what happened, what are you looking at? He wanted him dead for the pleasure of killing him in the face of missing a minor arrest. That, in NH, is murder. And if it was a lesser crime near murder, he'd still do life without parole for that, in NH.
1
I'm not a lawyer. This officer certainly appeared to want the victim dead. It seems to me he wanted him dead for understandable, to move away from the word justifiable, reasons: if he survived, the officer was headed for a lot of trouble. There might be an appeal. It is impossible to arrive at an absolutely perfect 'punishment' without really understanding the nature of the crime, if then. This individual disobeyed the orders of an officer of the law, he apparently rendered the officer incapable of using non-deadly force via his taser. Can distant onlookers put themselves in the place of the people we pay and arm to enforce our laws? Under the heat of the moment conflicting impulses race through the mind. Doing the job as you understand it is not going to be the same for everyone, or within everyone's ability when the moment comes. The judge here went beyond his duty in labeling this murder. It may well be murder, but to do his job, he only needed to pronounce sentence. Condemnation of police actions has been ubiquitous. It is convenient for people to ignore the fact that there are two sides to everything. Some have concern that we will be providing less enforcement for many who cannot afford to live in safe areas, there might be fewer who are capable willing to serve. Some of the well armed might step up their own private policing. As some go soft, others harden. We are in a golden age of accusation, but by no means united.
I hope that this is a trend. Thanks to all of the citizen videographers justice is gaining traction.
1
As bone chilling as the shooting was, it was more terrifying watching both Officer Slager and his colleague seamlessly transition into the manufacture of a crime scene. One that fits the narrative they would later describe. They didn't miss a beat.
This is a milestone case in that the officer has been sentenced to prison. Yet a jury watched the video of the shooting and could not come to consensus as to why what they saw was not only wrong, but criminal. That's more frightening than the immediate aftermath of the killing.
Walter Scott's mother is right: There is forgiveness in Christ. And that message is there not just for Officer Slager.
4
Short stint as a M.P. prison guard in the 1950’s. Our orders were if escaping prisoner fires at the legs, lower body do not shot to kill; weapon a carbine. Each time I read of an officer killing an unarmed person I can only grieve for the system that encourages that and very often forgives it.
3
I don't know how anyone after watching the video can believe Officer Slager was justified in killing Mr. Scott. It's about time a police officer was held accountable for their actions.
5
A cop who deliberately murdered and then tried to cover up the facts. Thank you Mr. Santana for having the quick thinking on the spot to video the fatal encounter. And yet, even with video evidence clear as day, they still tried to minimize the actions of this cop by arguing for voluntary manslaughter at best.
I hope it's the worst 20 years of his life in general population.
3
Mark my words: Trump will commute this police officer's sentence. I am not saying pardon, I'm saying he will in some way intervene to lessen the sentence because this fellow was, after all, a police officer. As sure as he will pardon Flynn and his children and in laws, he will intervene in response to pressure from the police lobby.
1
It will take more than the life of one and twenty years of another man's life to even the balance, but it's about the only ballast we as a society have and naturally at single individuals' expense. Everything about the story is tragic.
I celebrate the fact that finally a cop was held accountable, and this is a positive sign and brings a light of optimism. However, this is a perfect opportunity to hold back and think how much responsibility we all have as a society. All police got enormous power post 9-11, and many took that recognition and appreciation from the people as a ticket to do whatever they want, and now they have this sense of entailment, and impunity just because they are our "heroes", and whatever they do should be accepted period. So, perhaps we all should be more selective, and praise and recognize what is truly worth being praised and recognized, and stop blindly empowering police that most the times is just doing their job, and nothing else.
4
I want to see this man tried again in South Carolina before his peers. Can his peers hold him accountable? If convicted, I want to see him serve state/federal time. Then I'll be satisfied with the level of accountability for what this man did to Walter Scott.
2
Colin Kaepernick-- Bent Knee; is the why-of-it-all making sense now?
3
[[Mr. Scott, who was at least 17 feet from Mr. Slager when the officer opened fire, fell to the ground. Moments after the shooting, Mr. Slager approached Mr. Scott and dropped his Taser near him, an action that prosecutors believed was an attempt to plant evidence and skew the investigation.]]
Of course he intended a coverup and of course, except for the video, he would have gotten away with it.
Thank god for the iPhone.
It is a sad occasion when any person is sent to prison. But one finds grace and humility in witnessing Ms. Scott's forgiveness and recognition of the humanity of the man who killed her son.
Nothing can nor ever will erase from my mind the image of that officer lining up his shot against a middle aged, overweight man running for his life, lining up that shot with seemingly no emotion whatsoever, taking down his target as if it might be a deer; walking over calmly, in no urgent rush to check on his victim's condition, casually dropping the planted evidence next to him.
At that moment I asked myself, how widespread is this callous disregard for the lives these men are sworn to protect? Mr. Scott had the audacity to run from the law over a traffic ticket, and Mr. Slager's response was to draw his weapon, take aim at his slow moving target and, with no verbal warning whatsoever, shoot to kill.
Maybe one day Mr. Slager will fill in some of the blanks on what it was that made him so callous.
7
He wasn't convicted and found guilty by a jury, he plead guilty. Big difference.
The last four lines of this article made me cry. I didn't expect that. I showed up angry.
Whichever way one looks at this, it is a tragedy. The family of Walter Scott lost a loved one and the family of Michael Slager now suffer as he serves his time behind bars.
True justice should have been Mr. Slager chasing down Mr. Scott, no matter how infuriating or tiring, holding him down, arresting him and bringing him before a judge and jury. And then justice would have been served.
So there is absolutely nothing to cheer about this outcome.
1
This cold blooded murderer got off easy, but at least we can say that a measure of genuine justice has been served. I remember that horrible day, as the video of Walter Scott dying, alone and unaided by the other police offers played over and over...it was traumatizing and today represents a reckoning for this callous, thoughtless jaded police officer who acted as though he were shooting a deer and not another human being.
1
It's a good beginning. Mr. Slager needs to go to prison. He needs to do his time. This is called justice. Not revenge. It's called taking responsibility for one's actions.
Refreshing result. I'd rather it weren't a real 'change of pace' for someone to be convicted of murder - that is, looking around every day with horror and then a story of murder actually makes me feel better...I miss feeling happy about some POSITIVE thing going on in the U.S.
I agree with those who believe a life sentence would have been more appropriate. And it was absurd for the defense to argue against just punishment on the grounds that in prison, a former policeman’s life would be constantly at risk.
However, that said, it is now up to his jailers to assure the prisoner’s safety, both because he is entitled to that protection and because without it, no one might ever again be convicted and sentenced in a similar situation.
1
"It was a familiar theme for Mr. Slager’s defenders, who conceded his guilt but argued for more than two years that Mr. Slager was a good police officer who was prosecuted only because the politics of the moment demanded it".
No, the video evidence was too hard to stomach and was in stark contradiction to the report filed by Mr. Slager. Upholding the law doesn't mean being above it. All police officers are better off when bad ones are treated according to their actions.
1
I think a 20 year sentence may fall slightly short of the mark for what sure looks like murder, but this is overcome by the tough time Mr. Slager will have behind bars. It's quite likely that it will turn out to be a life sentence, because with the state of U.S. prisons, Mr. Slager has a good chance of being killed by other prisoners (primarily because he was a cop).
Hopefully this will also make for some changes in police department practices. There is just no reason to shoot an unarmed person in the back. There is reason if they are known to have a gun on them, because they have a good chance of using it on someone if the police let them escape, but if they're unarmed, they're surely pretty harmless. As Mr. Scott was fleeing unarmed, and had left his vehicle, his identity could have been easily figured out and he could have been apprehended later, if there was any need to do so.
Seems to me that Mr. Slager should never have been a cop in the first place. He panicked, fired his weapon for no good reason, and then tried to subvert justice by planting his taser near Mr. Scott's body. Those are the actions of someone who shouldn't be armed as part of their job, and shouldn't be upholding the law. I think a lot of cases like these could be avoided if police departments would be more careful about whom they hire.
You have no idea what goes on in a prison, and Slager did NOT panic. You miss the social reality too; departments hire these guys intentionally. They don't want social justice minds in blue unis, they want robots.
1
A terrible, awful event. I shed no tears for Mr. Slager but I’m truly touched by the attempt of Mr. Scott’s mother to extend forgiveness to him. She is not letting evil win. It is she that has asserted her power today, but she let her power be rooted in forgiveness and the capacity to preach love in the midst of these awful circumstances.
3
I cannot fathom what Mr. Slager was thinking when he began firing at the back of an unarmed man running from him. Other than maybe hatred for a black man he didn't know and hated for the color of that man's skin.
Whatever the reason for Mr. Slager's thinking, I believe he should serve every day of his sentence. Life would have been more just in light of the finality of Mr. Scott's sentence. I'm grateful that Mr. Santana had the presence of mind to record this incident or it would have been just one more dead black guy and a murderous policeman unpunished.
97
"Whatever the reason for Mr Slager's thinking"? Really - are you trying to find a justification for this horrible act? A life sentence with no chance of parole - for all his life would be a much better way to put this man away.
Those in power must face the harshest of sentences because they have abused the unequal power bestowed on them by the state. He must be put away for good.
20 years is a good start. But really, it's not enough. On the other hand, there's a good chance he will never leave that prison.
33
No prisoner should be subjected to abuse and in danger of his life while in prison. Slager committed murder but a prison sentence should not be a death sentence. All too often it is.
6
Julie Ca - Baloney. In jail he's a pain to the system, because he has to be protected. So they'll move him down to med security asap, then minimum security, and he'll be out in 11 years. They don't want the paperwork that goes with beatings, his lawyers will be a pain, they'll get him out as fast as they can. He's too much fuss, he's white, and that's how jail works.
2
Just 20 years?!
30
What hath god wrought? The actual conviction of a police officer for a clear cut case of murder? And in South Carolina? It's almost un- American.
Now, if we could only find some justice for officer Daniel Pantaleo whose cowardly behavior was instrumental in the death of Eric garner in 2014 on Staten Island, New York. Recall, it was another you tube documented case of murder which was conveniently swept away during the past three years
We still have a long way to go in American justice. A long way.
90
You are conflating circumstances. Most would agree the Slager case was clear cut, and I am in complete agreement with the verdict. Pantaleo? The all too frequent circumstance of resisting arrest and non cooperation with the police. Not at all similar case, and you know it.
Look at the video. Murdering someone with a chokehold while several other people hold the victim who was hardly in a position "to resist" is still murder.What I know is that the officer didn't have to kill him. It was excessive force. And you know it.
1
The standards of accountability for the PUBLIC SERVANTS we PAY to protect us has fallen to a grotesque level. Sadly, we the citizen's have empowered our politicians to structure our justice system to slant its justice towards our police at our expense as citizens. This needs to change & fast because results like this makes no one in society safe.
38
Yep ... And Australia is still waiting to see what account the police officer who shot Justine Damond in cold blood is held to. Thats gone quiet....
It was genuine love of flag, mom and apple pie, and the pain of injustice, that Colin Kaepernick knelt. What if there was no video refuting Slager's claim? What about all the others?
93
thanks Mr. Santana for coming forward. You must have been scared to. What was Officer Slager thinking to shoot a man in the back who is fleeing from him. His apology and regrets are all fine and good but they won't bring Walter Scott back to his family.
63
Finally, a murdering cop gets some prison time. What usually happens in our country is that the DA buddies up with and lies to the grand jury, on the side of the police, even telling them how to vote, and that's what makes cops usually immune to prosecution.
30
When the case is clearly murder, the officer is duly punished. Many of the signature cases of the Black Lives Matter movement were not anywhere near as clear as this one. Case in point: the Ferguson case, where Obama's own Justice department exonerated the cop, who was attacked by Michael Brown and acted in self defense.
9
Naysayer picked one of the weakest cases in Michael Brown. Has s/he forgotten Eric Garner and Philandro Castillo, to name two wanton murders by police followed by ... nothing?
2
Tamir Rice was clear, Eric Garner looked pretty clear, Philando Castille was not only clear, it had play by play commentary.
3
Finally one of these thugs pays for their actions. Let's hope it's a step towards a police force that is more professional and transparent. For too long their standard of conduct has been effectively non-existent, with any behavior condoned, covered-up and defended shamelessly.
40
Fair result. Worth noting that a South Carolina jury couldn't do its duty, even with the video.
76
I thought the exact same thing. My head explodes every time I see the video of Scott jumping out of the driver door and running away. SHOT IN THE BACK WHILE RUNNING AWAY.
1
"The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine."
It's about time they put some of these murderous cops behind bars.
71
I know there is A LOT going on, but this is a landmark event in a centuries old racial divide - it should be featured much more prominently on your front page. Not necessarily a gamechanger, but a landmark and a potential opportunity to move the social discussion and spur more progress.
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