The Slager Mistrial

Mistrial.

And I agree.

Officer Slager is facing yet another trial and a federal trial. Talk about triple jeopardy. Yes, I know it's not really double jeopardy because he wasn't declared "not guilty". But I maintain that this trial, these trials, are show trials that have nothing to do with justice and everything to do with the BLM silly narrative of innocent black men being shot by police for no good damn reason.

Of course the truth is nothing like it is being presented by the media: That Walter Scott was shot "because he had a broken tail light". The tail light was the justification for the stop. That was not what got Scott shot. I have not gone over the actual testimony but the video that I have seen lays the ground for reasonable doubt.

The first relevant video is that of the stop. Scott is stopped and asked to produce license the registration. Slager repeatedly tells Scott to stay in the vehicle. Scott decides that because he has outstanding warrants for failure to pay child support he would take his chance and run away from the scene. How he thought that would be better than staying put, I have no idea. But I'm not that stupid. Now the understanding is that Slager did not know about the warrant at the time Scott made his dash. Therefore Slager had reason to believe that Scott was running away because he had committed some crime. This is called "reasonable suspicion". Now once Slager thought Scott was a potential criminal (and running away from a police stop is a crime in itself) he was under no obligation to stop pursuing Scott. Scott doesn't get a pass because he thinks he Usain Bolt.

Now once Scott is caught, something never mentioned by the media, he struggles with Slager. From the video footage we know that Slager had attempted to use non-lethal force on Scott. Scott decided after that attempt to continue to run. Understand that by physically struggling with the officer, Scott has now committed a felony and Slager has reason to believe that Scott would use even more force if caught again. No officer has to wait to have his eye poked out or perhaps shot with his own weapon before escalating force against a suspect who has already assaulted him.

Now the entire reason we are even having this show trial is because of the Tenn ruling on fleeing suspects. In that ruling the circumstance was that a police officer arrived at a scene of a crime and an alleged suspect was running away. The court ruled that the suspect had a right to self interest and posed no danger to the officer who could not be certain that the suspect was even the person who committed the crime.

In this case however, Slager knows Scott is the suspect because Slager pulled him over. Furthermore Scott already resisted arrest by having a physical altercation with Slager. So he wasn't just fleeing, he was showing a willingness to escalate violence against Slager and perhaps anyone else he ran into who tried to stop him. Scott had plenty of opportunities to not get shot. He passed on all of them. Oh. The fuck. Well.

I'm glad there was at least one juror who saw through the bullshit of holding Slager responsible for Scott's piss poor decision making. Time to let everyone know that if you assault a police officer who is doing his or her lawful duties, emphasis on "lawfull" then if you get shot and killed, you get no sympathy from the rest of us.

And to the next set of white jurors who will likely be put on the next show trial. Do not let the court system or anyone else tell you you are racist for expecting grown ass black men to behave in a civil and civilized manner when dealing with police.