SC police officer charged with murder

[TCinVA]

I have zero issues with shooting violent fleeing felons in the back who are an active threat to the public and the officer. I am missing that on this one. Also missing an attempt at any kind of pursuit, etc. There may be more to this, but I am missing it.

Agreed. There's going to have to be one hell of a backstory to overcome what's on that video tape.

[Hambo]

I agree with Gadfly that he won't go down for murder. However, I think manslaughter and tampering with evidence are a sure bet.

[Dagga Boy]

It will be interesting from a purely academic interest as an LE trainer if there was a past history of being what I call a "fear biter". I have worked with officers with these issues and some folks are not a surprise to co-workers with some actions. This could be a case of everyone he works with being shocked or the quiet whispers in the locker room of all those who saw it coming.

I had no real issues with the cases in Ferguson or NY and was a heavy defender of the officers in those cases. This will not be one I will be defending. It is likely that the victim in the case probably initiated the escalation, but the officer did not properly control the escalation from what I saw, with fatal results.

[LittleLebowski]

Excellent analogy with the "fear biter" term, nyeti.

[JustOneGun]

If a slow motion and enhanced view of the video or video's hold up what appears to be happening, then I would not call it roasting him. I would call it justice. Because he is an officer means he should and probably would get an enhanced sentence. The days of police using a throwdown weapon or manipulating evidence to justify killing someone should be long gone. It didn't appear that he was doing police work, but the LORDS work.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

That certainly looks like the taser being dropped if you freeze and enlarge it. Doing that in front of the other officer seems not wise. Will the other officer be in serious trouble? Also, there was no attempt at first aid, etc.?

[texasaggie2005]

That certainly looks like the taser being dropped if you freeze and enlarge it. Doing that in front of the other officer seems not wise. Will the other officer be in serious trouble? Also, there was no attempt at first aid, etc.?

Agreed. You can also see the deployed wires going over his shoulder after he throws down the taser and drawing his pistol. You can even see the wires extending forwards, rustling leaves as the guy runs. After firing, it looks like he goes back to pick up the taser and set it next to the body. Here is a good version of the video;

https://vimeo.com/124336782

Edited to add: I'm no cop, not trying to justify him either, I know nothing about cop stuff. Just saying I can clearly see he deployed and fired the taser prior to shooting him. I don't see the taser ever controlled by the victim.

[GardoneVT]

If the evidence shows the video to be correct, he's a dirtbag who needs to be put on the proper side of the iron bars.

The problem this has in the greater context , however, is it legitimizes previous race riots. Now the race baiters have a real-life case of video police misconduct to cite, so when the next white cop shoots an armed black guy in justified UOF they'll point to this video and claim "Nyuh-huh, whaddabout THIS guy?"

Addendum to that- there's shady jerks in every industry and profession. If people think LEOs are racist, they should hear what salesmen say about black people behind the "Employees Only" sign. People interact with ethically fubar'd bankers, restaraunts, landlords, cabdrivers, and then chalk it up to "the one asshole" afterwards; people didnt dump their utility companies when Enron went down.

But let a former cop 3000 miles away screw the pooch,and suddenly its cause for national concern and all cops are now racist, shady, gun /taser/drug planting fiends .Never mind the economy....or the rapidly imploding Middle East...or the Iranian nuke issue.....

[Chance]

If the suspect were making a break for a weapon in the immediate vicinity, say one that was dropped in an earlier foot pursuit or stowed in a vehicle, would that have warranted UOF? This being along the lines of what Darryl discussed earlier. You can't tell from the video if he was just running away, or running purposefully towards something.

Granted, they've already stated he was shot "after a struggle over the stun gun", but this happened a grand total of three days ago, and there's a lot of context that's yet to be uncovered. I'd be open to them throwing a murder charge around initially, just to keep the National Action Network from reducing the town to ash while more evidence is sought.

[Chuck Haggard]

If the guy was sprinting towards an AR15 laying in the grass then yes, but that's not what appears to be going on here.

nyeti has a good description of this IMHO, but then outside of the fear biters that aren't ready for violence and get in over their heads, a very small few cops are just bullies and should never have had a badge, and they'll use force in any "contempt of cop" situation. I've slept on this one a bit, and I'm more pissed off about it now than I was yesterday.

Here in Kansas 2nd degree murder could likely be made to fit this one, along with a felony Obstruction of Justice charge, and Making a False Writing if he put lies in a report. I would hope they have the same sorts of charges in his jurisdiction.