Wednesday, April 08, 2015

Caught on Video: SC Police Officer Kills Black Man; Lies About Man Being Armed

Yesterday, I was watching the CBS Evening News before urging to change the channel; but then I heard Scott Pelley saying the words "police officer", "black man" and "shot to death". I got very perturbed and held the dial where it was. In the report, a video was shown of a white police officer shooting a black man to death in a park in North Charleston, South Carolina. The guy was running, seemingly because the officer was about to attack. The officer then shot him to death, and the sound-byte ends.
The officer was later arrested and charged with a murder charge. I changed the channel and went on with the rest of my day. Yet I was left with a bad taste in my mouth.

The guy, 50-year-old Walter Scott, was stopped by a traffic cop, for a broken tail-light. After a talk, there was a chase on foot, because of family court-issued warrants issued for his arrest, which led into a grassy lot. Form there, the officer catches the guy by shooting him in the back. Another officer comes by and takes in a wounding kit. The two officers come to Scott and take care of his wounds.

Here's where it goes for the worse: Minutes later, on CB radio, the officer lied to the other officers, saying that the guy had taken his Taser and tried to use it against him. If that actually happened (the guy taking the Taser and using it against the officer), then I would've understood the attack and would've even praised the officer for keeping his distance and defended himself. But NO! That did happen. The man fucking lied under oath, and took the life of a man who wasn't fucking armed!
I was disgusted and annoyed that these attacks and shooting deaths by police just keep happening, even if the guy did have a weapon. But here there was no weapon. The guy was unarmed. So the police officer shoots a guy for no damn reason. And, to top it off, instead of treating Scott with first aid, the officer runs off to the Taser on the ground and goes back to the dying suspect, dropping it in front of him, as if he's covering the crime scene. After the fix-up, the video ends.

Here is the video courtesy of the New York Times website (WARNING: it's graphic)

And Here is video of a press conference by featuring Scott's family and their attorney L. Chris Stewart, courtesy of the Huffington Post:


Imagine if this wasn't caught on video. This man still would've been walking, and still would've been a police officer, and this unarmed guy still would have been gone, leaving a poor, heartbroken, forever-saddened family behind. I hope the family stays strong in this horrible, painful, irreversible situation in their lives. I send my condolences to the Scott family.

I'll leave this post with this comment I made under a post a friend of mine shared on Facebook:
This is a fucking shame. Even if he wasn't a model citizen, he DID have a family and was a former man of authority. And now this so-called fellow man of authority took his life, because the guy was black. Fuck "Oh, he took my Taser" or "oh, he was armed". He fucking LIED on radio. I don't know how anyone could defend this officer now that he was caught killing a man for no reason.
I hope he has his badge taken away. Fuck this man.

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