April 14, 2015 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
14:09
2951 Walter Scott Shooting, Officer Michael Slager Charged | True News
Officer Michael Slager pulled over Walter Scott in a routine South Carolina traffic stop - and the events which followed left Walter Scott dead and Officer Slager charged with murder and stripped of his badge. An incredibly shocking video was recorded by a witness, showing a struggle between the two men - ultimately ending with Officer Slager firing eight shots into Walter Scott's back. What has been the reaction to this situation? What facts do we know? Is this another Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown situation? Stefan Molyneux looks at the facts as they are known and shares an important message about this terrible situation.
Like most of you, I was shocked and appalled to see the brutal gun-down of Walter Scott by Michael Slager in a routine traffic stop that somehow escalated into shots being fired at a suspect who appeared to be fleeing eight times, gunning him down.
And there is a significant amount of force that is used by American police against citizens.
American police are 70 times more likely to shoot people than most other Western countries and American police shot more people last year British police have shot in the entire last century in England.
So there is a problem there, to put it mildly.
Policing of the police by the police is also a huge challenge.
DAs and prosecuting attorneys regularly work with police.
Police investigating their own is a problem.
Judges and police sometimes have interests that are aligned.
So it is a huge challenge to investigate these kinds of things.
As I began to dig into the story, I began to find more and more information that makes the situation more complicated.
And looking at that video seems to be pretty clear-cut.
But looking at more information around this traffic stop, a routine traffic stop that escalated into the gun-down of a suspect.
It's important to understand the sequence of events that led to it.
This is not to justify.
This is not to prove anyone innocent.
The officer may well be guilty of murder as he is charged.
We will find that out in the long run.
He unfortunately or fortunately is now not able to provide his side of things because he's been charged so he has to clam up and wait for his day in court.
So we're not going to get any information from him likely before the trial.
But there is information that's out there that is important and relevant to having the humility that we all need to remember, innocent until proven guilty, innocent until proven guilty, the foundation of a civilized legal system and something that really only began to pop up in the 19th century.
It's relatively about as new as the steam engine, the idea of innocent until proven guilty.
We must remain and retain that standard and not join any mobs of vigilante pseudo-justice howling for the head of someone who, particularly when they don't have all the facts.
So, was this potentially a justified use of force legally on the part of the policemen?
Now, I say this.
I'm not a lawyer, no legal training.
This is information you can review.
We'll put the sources below.
And this is certainly not information that I'm in complete agreement with, but this is the information that is relevant.
Two relevant Supreme Court cases.
One, Tennessee v.
Garner.
That's an unfortunate name.
That states the deadly force, quote, may not be used unless necessary to prevent an escape and the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others.
And there is a general legal principle that says, if after notice of the intention to arrest the defendant, he either flee or forcibly resist, the officer may use all necessary means to effect the arrest.
So let's look at the events and compare it to these standards.
So, Slager, 9.33 in the morning, radio sees conducting a traffic stop of a green Mercedes-Benz, and he has a video on the dash of his cruiser.
He follows the car into the parking lot of an auto parts store.
He approaches the vehicle, has a brief exchange with Walter Scott, who is the driver, and there's a passenger.
In the passenger seat as well.
And Walter says, oh, I bought the car a few days earlier, and then changes his story and says, well, actually, I'm going to buy it on Monday.
And he doesn't have registration or ownership papers.
He does not have insurance for driving the car.
He's pulled over because of a non-functioning backlight.
So this is a problem already, right?
He's changed his story with the officer.
He has no ownership.
He has no...
Insurance, and this of course is not legal.
He says that he purchased the vehicle Friday, he's going to get the paperwork processed on Monday, according to the Daily Mail.
A co-worker says that he put new wheels on the week prior, so did he just purchase it or not?
It's uncertain.
But this is not a good beginning to the situation.
Now, the officer takes the man's ID and goes to check him.
Now, This man, Walter Scott, has been jailed a number of times previously, according to reports for failure to pay child support.
He was in a reiss for child support, although no bench warrant had been put forward as yet.
So, within a minute or two, Scott exits his vehicle and takes off running.
Slager radios that he's going to go off in foot pursuit, gives a description, and the dispatcher calls for other police units to respond.
Several officers can be heard saying they're on their way.
During the pursuit, Slager apparently yells, stop or I'll tase you or something similar.
And then when he's presumably within range, he yells, taser, taser, taser.
And then after that, he's heard yelling, lie on the ground.
He can also be heard, this is indistinct, yelling, something, something, or I'll shoot, lie down or I'll shoot, do that again and I'll shoot.
But there is a threat.
There is a terrible fight, which after running from the officer, Scott and the officer engage in A terrible fight.
It lasts for almost two minutes.
Now, if you look at this photo, it's blurry, of course, but the turquoise color is Scott's clothing and Scott appears to be on top of the officer and there is, of course, a fight.
Now, the officer, of course, has the right to use force to arrest a suspect and if you use violence against the officer, you are obviously legally in the wrong.
Now, the eyewitness who also made the video that most of us saw, the eyewitness says he heard a taser go off.
And when the officer called in to say that the suspect was down after the shooting, he said, he got my taser.
So, if we have a look at the still from the video footage, the taser appears to be embedded on Slager's left leg.
And again, we'll know this, of course, at some point during the trial when we find out about potential wounds and so on.
But you can see this little line here that appears to be the taser wire.
And if we look at this photo during the debriefing afterwards, you can see his left pant leg is pulled up.
And that may be for them to get photos of the wound, it may be because it's uncomfortable, but that appears to be a possible point of impact for the taser.
And here, if you look at this picture, this is right before the first shot.
There's a taser wire still attached to Schlager's upper torso, being tightened by Walter Scott as he disengages, as the first shot is fired.
You can see that line going from the leg to the chest.
So, this is a challenge to the gunned-down, innocent narrative, because, of course, if the suspect fought the officer violently, and if the suspect grabbed the taser, well, once you grab an officer's taser, deadly force apparently is authorized, because the taser is a disabling weapon.
You shoot someone with a taser, they go down, and then worse things can happen.
So, we don't know.
And again, we'll find out more during the course of the trial.
And I'm not, again, trying to try this in a podcast.
I'm just pointing out that there are challenges with the story.
Slager did not know where his taser was.
It had been discharged.
There's some video evidence that part of it is attached to Slager on his chest and lower left leg.
Part of it is also attached or tangled up with Walter.
It could be on both sides.
And if the taser is attached to Slager and Walter has the trigger, they could have electrocuted him.
And again, we don't know.
But at this time, according to Slager's perspective, the officer's perspective, Walter fled, resisted arrest, assaulted a policeman and reportedly took a weapon.
The weapon had been discharged.
And this is a problem.
Was he a danger to the officer?
Well, he had already tried to run and had attacked the officer and apparently tried to grab the taser and use it against the officer, whether successfully or not, we don't know yet.
So he was a danger to the officer, and people say, ah, but he was running away, he was fleeing, he was escaping.
Well, there's no way to know that.
So as you can see, or you can watch the video, it's when...
Scott disengages in the office.
The officer begins to pull out his weapon.
Now, Michael Brown also ran away from Darren Wilson, then turned around and charged back.
So the fact that some distance is being put between Scott and the officer is not a guarantee that Scott is running away.
And the first shot occurs very close.
And then, you know, like it or not, There is no shoot for the legs.
When officers pull out their weapon and begin shooting, the rule, as far as I understand it, is you shoot until the suspect goes down.
And that's what happened.
He kept shooting until the suspect was down.
That's what the officers are trained to do, rightly or wrongly.
Now, why would you shoot somebody who is, even if we accept that he was trying to get away, why would you shoot someone like that?
Well, because the man is now in desperate straits, right?
He's run, he's assaulted an officer, he's taken his weapon, and he's now in desperate straits.
He might go and take a hostage.
He might go and kill his ex-wife if he's always wanted to do that because he's got so little to lose.
He might hole up someplace with weapons.
And also, the way the area, the alley, the Walter Scott was trying to escape to had policemen coming up it, and would he have attacked those policemen?
Was he armed?
We all say unarmed after the fact, but there's no way to know for certain at that point whether he was armed or not.
So remember, the case Garner states that deadly force, quote, may not be used unless necessary to prevent an escape, and the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or to others.
Also, the officer knew that there was another man in the car.
Where was that man?
Did he get out?
Did he follow?
Is he circling around?
Is he armed?
The officer, of course, had no idea.
Now, the second relevant statute is a Graham v.
Connor case.
And this gives very wide latitude and benefit of the doubt to the police in the use of force, particularly deadly force.
So the way that this works is that you don't judge the use of force from the perspective of a non-police officer in the jury after having had weeks or days of evidence presented.
You have to judge the reasonableness of the use of force Based upon what a reasonable officer at the scene would believe, rather than with the benefit of hindsight.
And so knowing that it was a fake gun afterwards is not how you judge it.
If it looks like a real gun, that's what the officer at the time and in the situation would believe.
It's objective reasonableness.
And the decision explicitly acknowledges that police officers often have to make decisions...
So, this is a quote.
So, from the final paragraph...
Of this section of Tennessee v.
Garner, Section 11b, quote, If the suspect threatens the officer with a weapon, or there is probable cause to believe that he has committed a crime involving the infliction or threatened infliction of a serious physical harm, deadly force may be used, if necessary, to prevent escape, and if, where feasible, some warning has been given.
So, we do have a standard of innocent until proven guilty.
I don't know whether the man is innocent or guilty.
It is complex.
It is complicated.
But we need to have these standards.
These standards are there when it's difficult to have them.
When we see this appalling footage of a man being gunned down and we have a visceral physical revulsion at witnessing the act, that is when we need to have our principles.
And we need to remember the innocent until proven guilty.
The race-baiting narrative is a huge problem.
There are reports that...
Walter Scott himself had posted on Facebook during the George Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin situation that what would be just would be to give Trayvon Martin's parents guns and have them shoot George Zimmerman.
So he obviously was following that case and had very strong opinions about that case.
A lot of race-baiting went on in that case.
I think there's race-baiting going on here too, and I think it's really tragic.
We always hear about racial profiling, racial profiling.
What is the real racial profiling here?
The real racial profiling here is that it's a white cop and a black suspect.
If it was a black cop shooting a black suspect, this would barely have made news anywhere.
Because it's a white cop, that is racial profiling.
We need to let that go.
We need to let that go.
The man is not guilty because he's white.
The man is not innocent because he's black.
We need to look at these things based upon the facts, being open to all interpretations, being willing to submit our prejudices to the empirical evidence at hand, having an understanding of the legal requirements and legal justifications for the use of force, and not join the howling mobs, sticking their pitchforks in the air, chanting mindless and not join the howling mobs, sticking their pitchforks in the air, chanting mindless slogans, and looking in We have to be better than that as a society.
This was a horrifying, horrible, tragic, vile event.
We do not know the facts.
The facts will come out over time.
And it would be nice, by the way, if the lawyer defending the officer was actually able to get the information that he needs to mount the defense from the police force, and it wasn't being leaked to the media, as was the case with recordings, apparent recordings of the officer after the attack.
Let us suspend judgment until the facts come in.
There's a reason why we don't have lynch mobs, but rather have courts of law.
Let us respect that reason, withhold judgment, and wait for the facts.
