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1. A judge has been assigned for the Slager trial and all pre-trial motions. In South Carolina, the SC Supreme Court can choose to choose a judge to assign to a case vice it being randomly assigned by the rotation. They chose Judge Clifton Newman, who is not local to the Charleston area.
2. The passenger in the car has his attorney do some interviews on local media. He says they were on the way to a cookout when stopped and he did not know why Scott decided to run. Per the passenger, Scott tried to phone his family right before he got out of the car and ran. The passenger remained in the car. He heard what he described as a taser sound followed by several gunshots. He did not see any of the confrontation.
3. The Black Lives Matter group is having some issues with each other (national vs. local). They came up with new demands (national). Local BLM has asked for citizen review boards with the power of subpoena (that last part not allowable by law). The national BLM group wants the Police Chief Driggers to resign and wants half of the NCPD's budget to go to non-police community activities.
4. SLED has released some information about their investigation. They were denied interviews with Slager immediately following the shooting via Slager's attorney. It was two days before they could interview Slager at his attorney's office. At this point, SLED already had the video and forensics showing the discrepancies between Slager's official report and what the scene showed - as documented in their records and reports. They arrested and charged Slager at the conclusion of this interview. Of note, while Slager refused to speak with SLED after the shooting, his attorney went to every local media outlet almost immediately after the shooting putting Slager's "version" out there. This attorney eventually quit after the release of the video and has since been replaced by local defense attorney (who LOVES big media cases), Andy Savage.
Now my opinions on a few things:
I did some research on this Black Lives Matter group and I'm not thrilled with their "demands" on a larger/national scale. One of the things they ultimately want is to have no police whatsoever and to change to a self-policed type of society. This is both unrealistic and ridiculous on its face. If this is their ultimate goal, I can't imagine why anyone would support them. From their national group's Tumblr page #BLACKLIVESMATTER : Photo
As to the narrative the national media wants to continue to push about Slager wouldn't have been charged if not for the video, I think this is inaccurate. At this point, SLED already knew Slager's account did not remotely match the forensics of the scene. Did the video make SLED's job easier? Yes but the national media is pushing a narrative that doesn't appear to be true - I'm looking at you CNN!
The self policing idea isn't new. The problem with it (among many more) is that to avoid a complete vigilante system, someone must be the arbitrator for disagreements on what reported events are crimes and which are not.
We can only guess who wants to be the arbitrators in the self policing system.
Self policing was used successfully, in history by Stalin and Hitler. They were so successful in using self policing systems that millions of people could be arrested, turned into slaves and eventually exterminated.
Every once in a while, some group seeks to take advantage of a problem to bring this up. They are always the ones they think are best suited to run such systems too.
On reform, I agree with you that holding police accountable for misconduct is at least a major and important way to improve overall policing. There are at least a few ways to do that: 1) bodycams with punishment for not using them (which also have the effect of providing evidence of police conduct in cases that are otherwise based on the officer's word), 2) police disciplinary proceedings with a much lower bar than criminal conviction and with potential for serious career consequences, 3) federal analysis of department performance with rewards and punishment--withholding or providing federal funding for police departments based on their performance on various metrics (e.g., robust reporting of officer use of force, robust police conduct investigation procedures, state-of-the-art use of force guidelines, improvement in use of force statistics, adequate officer performance reviews, etc.).
1. I am torn on the use of body cameras. While I certainly acknowledge that they would be a very valuable tool in fighting not only police misconduct but potentially all types of other crimes as well. However as an individual I am not exactly a fan of the thought of potentially being recorded basically at the whim of a police officer. If we are going to outfit all police officers with body cams then it only make sense to require them to be used and have penalties for not doing so, however as I do question how easy they to turn on/off (do they just have to push a button or flip a switch), how easy is it to tell whether or not they are recording and how easy they would be to accidently turn off. I am not really familiar with body cameras and think it would be a great injustice for the good honest officers out there to possibly be suspended or fired for a simple mistake.
2. Who sits on the disciplinary board? Is it other police officers who may be more likely to cover for their fellow officers? Is it random citizens who may not have any clue (or even be capable of understanding) actual law enforcement issues? Is it politicians (or those who are appointed by them) who may have their own agendas that they are pursuing.
3. Withholding funding for poor performing departments hardly seems like an effective way to fix problems within the department.
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You also have to get the public down with the program. It seems the criminal element, as well as anyone with a particular bone to pick or axe to grind, could take serious advantage of self policing.
I think body cams are a good idea - for everyone. The public and the police alike. The more film and angles there are, the better sense you have of everything that actually happened. Any kid that has ever 'warred' in an MMO knows this. One angle is good (better than nothing), but not quite good enough.
I would change the word "police" to the word "people". All people will lie,inflate,massage,contort or omit parts of a story to keep themselves out of serious trouble. It's not just a police thing, a white or black thing, it's a human thing.
So, when it comes to those that are supposed to enforce the rules what do we do? That is the problem that needs to be addressed.
That argument assumes the defendant has committed a crime. After all, an innocent person doesn't need to fabricate a story.
That argument assumes the defendant has committed a crime. After all, an innocent person doesn't need to fabricate a story.
And yet innocent people inflate their stories to make themselves look "more" innocent, leaving out any mention of anything they believe may look bad for them.
Not saying this as a negative, just saying that perception and self preservation colors all stories.
1. I am torn on the use of body cameras. While I certainly acknowledge that they would be a very valuable tool in fighting not only police misconduct but potentially all types of other crimes as well. However as an individual I am not exactly a fan of the thought of potentially being recorded basically at the whim of a police officer. If we are going to outfit all police officers with body cams then it only make sense to require them to be used and have penalties for not doing so, however as I do question how easy they to turn on/off (do they just have to push a button or flip a switch), how easy is it to tell whether or not they are recording and how easy they would be to accidently turn off. I am not really familiar with body cameras and think it would be a great injustice for the good honest officers out there to possibly be suspended or fired for a simple mistake.
2. Who sits on the disciplinary board? Is it other police officers who may be more likely to cover for their fellow officers? Is it random citizens who may not have any clue (or even be capable of understanding) actual law enforcement issues? Is it politicians (or those who are appointed by them) who may have their own agendas that they are pursuing.
3. Withholding funding for poor performing departments hardly seems like an effective way to fix problems within the department.
1. On body cameras, I think the privacy issues are really no significant change from the world today--we are all potentially being recorded basically at the whim of our fellow citizens. And our fellow citizens may be posting those videos on the internet for anyone in the public to see. We can at least create processes to control police body camera footage. The question of making the cameras difficult to turn off is a simple technical question (the more difficult question is data storage capacity and policies). The punishment for police not using cameras is simply to create incentives for their use. There are many degrees of punishment before firing, and a system would be devised so that a good officer is not fired for a simple mistake.
2. Right now, most departments either a) have their own internal affairs department staffed by their own officers, b) have a citizen's review board, and/or c) outsource their police investigations to other departments in overlapping or contiguous jurisdictions. In any event, officers should be held accountable as professionals when their performance is inconsistent with best practices. Their power is too great not to have robust internal discipline.
3. Too many departments are lax about the consistency and professionalism of their officers. Putting their funding at risk will light a fire under a lot of complacent police chiefs to whip their departments into shape.
The racists on the forum are not getting to me. I simply watched the video and see something that I can't quite pinpoint. If I can see it so can his attorney's. If he is overcharged he might walk. It's better to get a conviction than an aquittal because the charges can't be proven.
This message is for the person who repp'd me with a comment but left out their handle.
You know what? I just slowed down the video, as much as I could without special equipment, and if you play around with pausing it within the 1:25 time frame what really happened becomes very ambiguous before you notice the taser lying on the ground. So maybe this should really be a manslaughter case. Just my personal opinion after a closer review.
I'm not seeing anything that warrants him shooting Scott in the back.
And yet innocent people inflate their stories to make themselves look "more" innocent, leaving out any mention of anything they believe may look bad for them.
Not saying this as a negative, just saying that perception and self preservation colors all stories.
Well, I wouldn't necessarily agree with that point of view. Perhaps you can provide a few links to illustrate why you feel that way?
I'm not seeing anything that warrants him shooting Scott in the back.
Neither did I.
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