America
US outrage: What if there was no video of white cop killing black man?
By
By Arun KumarWashington, April 11
As the family of the
latest victim of a white cop shooting dead a black person planned his
burial, protesters wondered what would have happened if a bystander had
not shot a video of the horrific incident.
"Where would we be
without that video?" asked Justin Bamberg, the attorney of the family of
Walter Scott, an unarmed black man in the United States who was shot
eight times in the back by North Charleston police officer Michael
Slager.
"The answer to that question is important," said the
Times magazine as it listed 14 controversial encounters from 17-yearold
Trayvon Martin being fatally shot by neighborhood watch volunteer George
Zimmerman on Feb 26, 2012 in Sanford, Florida to the April 4 shooting
of Scott.
"Before the video emerged, the killing of Walter Scott
had occupied the same contested territory in which hundreds of other
cases have languished and festered."
These included "famous
cases, like the killings of Eric Garner in New York and Michael Brown in
Ferguson, Missouri, and other cases that barely register in the police
blotter," it said.
"The routine encounter that gets out of hand,
the abrupt escalation from questions to gunfire-the themes are so common
that it's hard to avoid two conclusions, which sit uncomfortably
together in the American mind," the magazine said.
"First, that
it must be scary to be a police officer in such circumstances. And
second, that it is even more frightening-with an overlay of
humiliation-to be the black man in the picture," Time said hitting the
nail on the head.
Yet, it was "impossible to know," the fate of
Slager who is being held without bail on charges of murder after the
video surfaced, Time said as "it remains difficult to convict a police
officer in many jurisdictions."
A recent analysis by the State
newspaper, it noted had found that officers in South Carolina fired
their weapons at 209 suspects from 2010 to 2015, but the handful of cops
who were charged with illegal shootings were eventually exonerated.
The
Slate citing the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, or SLED,
reported that Scott's death marks the 11th officer-involved shooting in
South Carolina since the beginning of this year.
Nationwide, on
average, the story of a white officer shooting a black man emerges about
twice a week, the New Yorker said citing a USA Today report that about
96 African-Americans were fatally shot by police every year from 2006 to
2012.
Meanwhile, police continue to investigate the incident in
which Scott was shot while fleeing from Slager after being pulled over
for a broken taillight.
A dash cam video footage of the incident shows Slager talking calmly to Scott during the traffic stop.
Scott apparently says he has no insurance on the vehicle, and Slager returns to his car to do paperwork, according to CNN.
Moments later, Scott gets out of his car and bolts. A foot chase ensues.
Scott
never reappears on the dash cam video, but a witness later took video
of the officer shooting Scott several times in the back as he is running
away.
"Nothing in this video demonstrates that the officer's
life or the life of another was threatened," National Urban League
President Marc Morial was quoted as saying. "The question here is
whether the use of force was excessive."
SLED has stated that its
investigators found troubling inconsistencies from the very start. "The
cell phone video shot by a bystander confirmed our initial suspicions."
(Arun Kumar can be contacted at [email protected])