Filming someone commit murder would represent a serious risk to any sane person. The footage just doesn't look right, zooming suggests the cameras not hidden and theres no acknowledgement from the police.
Smells IMO.
Also its being pitched as B vs W thing but the second cop is black so abuse of position/power not necessarily racial.
I don't really know what point your trying to make Ernie, you just seem to want to argue for the sake of it.
Really ? I thought my point, which I repeated twice, was obvious. I get every impression that it is you who appears unable to accept that someone has a different opinion and wants to argue the toss. But there you go.
A 1st degree conviction in this situation would be hard to prove I think, it requires proof of premeditation and malicious intent, I imagine it'll be downgraded to 2nd or possibly voluntary manslaughter. Allthough either of those will be as welcome as a fart in a spacesuit for the dead mans family.
Neither situation is good and neither should see the officer unpunished, but they would or should bring very different sentences.
Not really, for political reasons the guy needs to go down for a long time.
Otherwise more officers will be shot, more riots will take place, there will be more racial polarization and less people will respect the police force. White officers also need to be given an example to keep in mind the next time they decide to shoot someone.
Thank you for pointing that out. You were suggesting that the seriousness of the crime depended on who was 'responsible' for the scuffle.
I was suggesting the seriousness of the sentence may depend on who started the scuffle. You know like normally happens in sentencing when juries and judges have looked at the events surrounding the incident.
Then for some strange reason, you decided that the fact he has been charged with first degree murder is a counter argument to that.
Yep, given the amount of innocent people shot and killed by officers in the US and the historical conclusions previously reached I agree moose. The first-degree charge is extremely unusual if not unprecedented and I would be surprised if this case proved to be a ground-breaking. We'll see what happens.
Then for some strange reason.....
For some strange reason I don't agree with you. This strange reason is that the conclusion I've come to is different to yours. Having seen the same stuff as you I don't think who started the scuffle is important. That's my opinion, it's different to yours. You appear to think that I've taken it because I want [i]"to argue for the sake of it,[/i] you don't seem to think that it is feasible that someone should not agree with you.
In this situation who started it is irrelevant, that [b]may[/b] have be pertinent if it was two civilians having a dispute but in this case one of them is a trained LEO who is trained in threat assessment and the appropriate use of force. Like I said in a previous post, unless he was armed a posed a risk to thers then the officer would have had cause to fire on him. I think the cop is going to jail in the near future.
The guy was running away and was shot in the back, the cop tried to fabricate the [i]incident[/i] scene to his own ends - that's murder according to me and i hope the cop gets what he deserves and that does not include an [i]easy[/i] prison sentence in a safe n' secure prison, drop him in amoungst everyone else and let natural selection take it's course.
[url= http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/walter-scott-shooting/man-who-recorded-walter-scott-being-shot-speaks-out-n338126 ]Pretty Damning stuff[/url]
He had control of Scott. And Scott was trying just to get away from the Taser.
So according to the eyewitness Walter Scott fled because he thought he was going to be tasered. Given the circumstances, ie an armed copper, and the end result, ie being shot dead, that clearly was a mistake.
Although I can understand how the thought of being tasered could cause someone to panic. And of course Walter Scott probably couldn't have known that the man in uniform was certain to be a murderer. If that turns out to be the case.