Tag Archives: walter-scott

Former Cop Who Shot and Killed Walter Scott Now Faces Federal Charges

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

The former police officer who was filmed fatally shooting Walter Scott, an unarmed black man in South Carolina last year, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on three new charges. The federal indictment, which was filed on Tuesday, accuses Michael Slager of violating Scott’s civil rights, obstruction of justice, and the unlawful use of a weapon, the New York Times reports.

Last April, a bystander recorded Slager fatally shooting Scott in the back as he attempted to flee a routine traffic stop, directly challenging Slager’s initial claim that Scott had stolen his police taser and tried to use it against him. The new charges this week accuse Slager of purposely misleading authorities.

According to a statement released by the Department of Justice, if convicted, Slager could face a maximum sentence of life in prison for the civil rights violation.

Slager is already facing a possible sentence of 30 years to life for the shooting death, after a South Carolina jury indicted him on murder charges last June.

View post – 

Former Cop Who Shot and Killed Walter Scott Now Faces Federal Charges

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, OXO, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Former Cop Who Shot and Killed Walter Scott Now Faces Federal Charges

Murdered State Senator Clementa Pinckney Made This Haunting Speech About Walter Scott

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

One of the victims of Wednesday’s horrific shooting at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, was state Senator Clementa Pinckney, the church’s pastor. Much has already been written about Pinckney’s dedication to public service from a young age, and his rich life in the church. My colleagues are updating a full list of the nine victims as more information becomes available. In the meantime, here’s another memorable moment from Pinckney’s leadership in the South Carolina Senate.

Back in May, the senator delivered this stirring (and now haunting) call to action following the death of Walter Scott—the unarmed black man who was shot and killed by a white police officer in North Charleston, just six miles north of where Pinckney and others were murdered. Here’s Pinckney on the Senate floor, rallying support for the adoption of police body cameras. Watch and read below:

Transcript:

Today, the nation looks at South Carolina and is looking at us to see if we will rise to be the body, and to be the state that we really say that we are. Over this past week, many of us have seen on the television, have read in newspapers, and have seen all the reports about Walter Scott, who, in my words, was murdered in North Charleston. It has really created a real heartache and a yearning for justice for people, not just in the African American community, but for all people, and not just in the Charleston area, or even in South Carolina, but across our country.

…But the next week, Thomas was there, Jesus walked in, he said, “I won’t believe until I see the nails. I won’t believe until I can put my hand in your side.” And it was only when he was able to do that, he said, “I believe, my Lord and my God.”

Ladies and gentlemen of the Senate, when we first heard on the television, that a police officer had gunned down an unarmed African American in North Charleston by the name of Walter Scott, there were some who said, “Wow. The national story has come home to South Carolina.” But there were many who said, “There is no way that a police officer would ever shoot somebody in the back 6, 7, 8, times.” But like Thomas, when we were able to see the video, and we were able to see the gun shots, and when we saw him fall to the ground, and when we saw the police officer come and handcuff him on the ground, without even trying to resuscitate him, without even seeing if he was really alive, without calling an ambulance, without calling for help, and to see him die face down in the ground as if he were gunned down like game, I believe we all were like Thomas, and said, “I believe.”

…We have a great opportunity to allow sunshine into this process. It is my hope that as South Carolina senators, that we will stand up for what is best and good about our state and really adopt this legislation and find a way to have body cameras in South Carolina. Our hearts go out to the Scott family, and our hearts go out to the Slager family, because the Lord teaches us to love all, and we pray that over time, that justice be done.

(Video h/t Michael Adams)

Taken from – 

Murdered State Senator Clementa Pinckney Made This Haunting Speech About Walter Scott

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Murdered State Senator Clementa Pinckney Made This Haunting Speech About Walter Scott

Looking for the Link Between Driving While Black And Police Shootings

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

On Thursday, South Carolina’s Law Enforcement Division released the dashcam footage of the moments leading up to officer Michael Slager’s fatal shooting of Walter Scott. It opens with Slager following Scott, who was driving a Mercedes-Benz, into a parking lot. They stop, then Slager walks up to Scott’s window, asks for his license and registration, and informs him that he was pulled over because of a broken brake light. Slager returns to his car. Moments later, Scott opens his door and runs away. A chase ensues, culminating in Slager firing eight shots and killing Scott.

In the aftermath of Scott’s death, little attention has been paid to fact that it was precipitated by a traffic stop. But Scott certainly wasn’t the first such encounter to go wrong: Both of the two other fatal police shootings in South Carolina over the past year that led to criminal charges also began with traffic stops. One was for a suspected DUI. The other was for a busted tail light.

More MoJo coverage on police shootings:


Exactly How Often Do Police Shoot Unarmed Black Men?


The Cop Who Choked Eric Garner to Death Won’t Have to Pay a Dime in Damages


Philadelphia Cops Shoot and Kill People at 6 Times the Rate of the NYPD


Here’s What Happens to Police Officers Who Shoot Unarmed Black Men


Congress Is Finally Going to Make Local Law Enforcement Report How Many People They Kill


Hereâ&#128;&#153;s the Data That Shows Cops Kill Black People at a Higher Rate Than White People

A search of news reports from the past decade turns up several other fatal police encounters that began with traffic stops: The deaths of Julio Eddy Perez in Los Angeles in 2008, DeCarlos Moore in Miami in 2010, Noel Polanco in New York City in 2012, Jerame Reid in New Jersey in 2014, Ezell Ford in Los Angeles in 2014, and David Kassick in Pennsylvania this February. (A 1976 traffic stop that nearly killed a black man prompted the Supreme Court to review—and approve—police officers’ use of chokeholds.)

So how often do traffic stops turn into police shootings? The short answer is that we don’t know. But there’s compelling evidence that black drivers are disproportionately likely to get pulled over. The Department of Justice’s 2011 Public-Police Contact Survey reported that black and Hispanic drivers were pulled over, ticketed, and searched at higher rates than whites. (It also found that cops used physical force against about 1 percent of drivers pulled over at traffic stops, but didn’t specify the drivers’ race.)

In 2014, three sociologists at the University of Kansas surveyed more than 2,300 drivers in and around Kansas City. They discovered that while stops over traffic safety violations showed little racial disparity, when it came to stops related to minor violations, like expired license plate stickers, black drivers were pulled over twice as often.

These “investigatory stops” provided what Slate‘s Jamelle Bouie describes as a “pretext for something more sinister”:

In these, drivers are stopped for exceedingly minor violations—driving too slowly, malfunctioning lights, failure to signal—which are used as pretext for investigations of the driver and the vehicle. Sanctioned by courts and institutionalized in most police departments, investigatory stops are aimed at “suspicious” drivers and meant to stop crime, not traffic offenses. And as the authors note, “virtually all of the wide racial disparity in the likelihood of being stopped is concentrated in one category of stops: discretionary stops for minor violations of the law.”

The difference between the two kinds of stops is dramatic. Where traffic safety stops are mostly painless (other than tickets), investigatory stops involve searches, impromptu interrogations, and occasionally handcuffs and weapons.

That Walter Scott was driving a Mercedes may not have helped. As the University of Kansas researchers found, an African-American man under 40 had a 36 percent chance of getting pulled over for an investigatory stop in a given year if he drove a domestic luxury car—versus 21 percent for if he drove a non-luxury car. (Scott was 50.)

And there’s a growing body of research showing that implicit bias likely played a role in Slager’s split-second decision to shoot Scott. But as Bouie points out, racial bias is hardly relevant when it comes to the traffic stop that started their encounter. “What matters is that this universal suspicion is baked into the culture of police departments across the country, such that all kinds of officers—black as well as white—engage in profiling”—an unknown number of which have turned lethal. And so long as that culture persists, Chris Rock’s selfies will keep coming.

Source: 

Looking for the Link Between Driving While Black And Police Shootings

Posted in alo, Anchor, Casio, FF, G & F, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta, Vintage | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Looking for the Link Between Driving While Black And Police Shootings