Alleged killer-cop Slager
Last Saturday a White police officer in South Carolina shot and killed a Black man and claimed, just as Darren Wilson did when he gunned down Michael Brown in Ferguson, that he “feared for his life”; in the South Carolina case the policeman, Michael T. Slager, claimed the man he killed, Walter L. Scott, had grabbed his taser when he was trying to arrest him.
The officer, who is 33, might have gotten away with the incident hadn’t a video emerged today showing that he had actually shot Scott in cold blood, firing eight times at him from behind as he ran away.
It turns out that it was Scott, 50 years old, who actually feared for his life. The whole affair began with a traffic stop because Scott allegedly had been driving a Mercedes with a faulty tail-light.
Slager’s action confirms the fears of many Black males who are confronted by White police officers; that there are those out there with such deep-seated hatred just waiting for an opportunity to kill Black males, knowing all they have to say is that they “feared” for their lives.
What makes the cold-blooded murder in North Charleston, South Carolina, so chilling is the calm, cool, and collected manner in which the White officer than starts to cover up his heinous crime.
The alleged killer cop is seen handcuffing the victim, who is clearly dead and yelling loudly, and urgently, “put your hands behind your back, put your hands behind your back” to the lifeless corpse.
He also reportedly said, “Shots fired and the subject is down. He took my taser.“
Why? Because it was part of Slager’s elaborate cover-up. He wanted any police officer or officers listening in on his radio call to verify that he had indeed spoken those words; that he had in fact been making an arrest.
Slager is then shown first walking then running back to the spot, several yards away, from where he’d stood and gunned down Scott, as if he’d been taking target practice; which perhaps in his mind he had been. He retrieved an object which appears to be the stun gun and returned and dropped it next to the dead man’s body.
Slager wanted to make sure that the “evidence” on the scene would match the lies he had already concocted in his defense.
He did all this within seconds of killing the unarmed Black man, meaning he may have already thought about doing something like this –pre-meditated– in case he ever shot a person unlawfully; or, perhaps he’s already been involved in a situation where such cover-up has been employed; or, perhaps it’s included in some form of unofficial training?
What’s also extremely bothersome is that another officer soon arrives on the scene and appears to already be by Scott’s body when Slager drops the object near the lifeless form; was he too involved in a cover-up?
It’s as clear as it gets in South Carolina and Slager has been charged with murder.
But there is no slam-dunk in cases involving the killing unarmed Black males by White police officers.
When the pretend-officer, George Zimmerman, killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, many people thought he would be convicted; when the NYPD’s Daniel Pantaleo killed Eric Garner in a videotaped lynch-hold, many people thought he would be convicted, but he wasn’t even indicted; and, when the FPD’s Darren Wilson gunned down unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown with six bullets, including one in the right eye and another on the top part of his head, again many people thought he too would be convicted, and he too wasn’t even indicted.
That a White officer could kill a Black man running away, who posed no danger to him, in cold blood, even after the recent uproar and national protests following the non-indictment of Wilson and Pantaleo, speaks loudly about how many “officers of the law” place no value on the lives of Black males.
The City of North Charleston is reportedly 47% African American, 37% White, and yet the Police Department is 80% White. In light of the cold-blooded execution-style killing of Scott by Slager, the U.S. Department of Justice should conduct an investigation similar to the one it did on the Ferguson Police Department.
Alleged killer cops like Slager foster an environment that can ignite flames that will be difficult to contain.
