http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isSlim=1
The video of a South Carolina police officer shooting a black man in the back as he ran away gives victims of police misconduct new ammunition to overturn common assumptions about police brutality, but families of victims and civil rights advocates wonder if it will be enough to spur real change.
Police who shoot and kill suspects often escape prosecution because the criminal justice systems places a high value on an officer’s word and often accepts their narrative of events, says attorney Benjamin Crump, who represents the family of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager who was killed by a Ferguson, Mo., police officer last summer. A grand jury declined to indict the officer.
In the most recent incident, North Charleston Police Officer Michael Slager, 33, who claimed he shot Walter Scott, 50, in self-defense after Scott grabbed his Taser, is facing a murder charge after a video surfaced that disputed his claim.
“They use this narrative all the time,” Crump said. ” ‘I was in fear of my life. I felt threatened. They reached for my weapon.’ That’s how they justify killing us. Now that it’s been exposed with this case, will America challenge it?”
On Wednesday, at an annual gathering in New York of the National Action Network, a group founded by civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton, policy makers and families of victims mulled over whether Scott’s death and the dramatic video would shake the conscience of the nation enough to confront issues of biased policing.
Categories: Americas, Highlight, Racism, United States, Video
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R770Kp0qGrs&w=470&h=275%5D
Quoting CNN
(CNN)In both cases, a white police officer kills an unarmed black man. But the outcomes so far have been wildly different.
So what’s changed between the shooting deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and of Walter Scott in North Charleston, South Carolina?
Here are some of the stark differences in the cases, the lessons learned by both police and the public and concrete changes that could help mend tensions in the future.
Ferguson: There was no bystander video of Brown’s death — no concrete evidence to support witness claims that Brown had his hands up to surrender.
North Charleston: It’s unlikely North Charleston police Officer Michael Slager would have been fired and charged with murder so quickly if not for video shot by witness Feidin Santana.
Even North Charleston’s police chief said he was disgusted by the footage of Scott’s shooting.
“I watched the video, and I was sickened by what I saw,” Chief Eddie Driggers said. “I have not watched it since.”
Not only does the video show Slager firing eight shots at Scott as he is running away, it also shows Slager picking up a dark-colored object that had fallen to the ground and later placing a dark object next to Slager’s lifeless body.
That could be significant because Slager initially said Scott had taken his Taser stun gun and feared for his life. But if investigators determine the object dropped next to Scott’s body was actually the Taser, Slager could be accused of planting evidence.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/09/us/north-charleston-ferguson-comparison/index.html
Walter Scott’s passenger meets with police as family plans burial
“This is a heartbreaking tragedy for everyone in our community,” he says, adding they share the grief of their neighbors in North Charleston and with the Scott family. “It breaks everyone’s hearts, wherever we live.”
By Polo Sandoval and Steve Almasy, CNN
Charleston, South Carolina (CNN)—The casket is draped with an American flag, and Walter Scott is dressed in a dark suit.
A white banner with a blue star refers to his favorite NFL team. It says: “Tradition, the Cowboys way.”
A few mourners trickled into the Fielding Home For Funerals in Charleston, South Carolina. Charleston Mayor Joseph Riley comes by to pay his respects and show support for the Scott family.
They are not at Friday night’s visitation, the mayor says. The stress of the past week since Scott was fatally shot in the back by a North Charleston police Officer Michael Slager is too much. They went by the funeral home earlier but they are exhausted, he says. They need their privacy now and at Saturday’s funeral and burial, he says.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/10/us/south-carolina-police-shooting/