A bomb is about to go off.
Michael Slager, the former armed government worker (cop) who was video recorded shooting an unarmed man in the back eight times – as the man was running away from him – may not be convicted of anything.
Via NBCnews.com (emphasis added):
A lone juror said they cannot convict a white former police officer who fatally shot a black man in South Carolina, and the judge asked for clarification from the foreperson as to whether the jury is hopelessly deadlocked.
The juror in a letter to the court said “I cannot in good conscience consider a guilty verdict” against Michael Slager, a former patrolman who pulled over Walter Scott in North Charleston, and ended up shooting him as a bystander recorded the incident on video.
The jury foreperson said in a separate note to the court that it was only one juror who was “having issues,” Circuit Judge Clifton Newman said. The juror opposed to conviction said in the letter, “I cannot and will not change my mind,” Newman said.
Slager was charged with murder in Scott’s killing, although the jury was allowed to consider a lesser charge of manslaughter in addition to murder. Slager’s attorneys requested a mistrial.
The facts – which are not in dispute – bear repeating:
Slager pulled Scott over for a nonviolent traffic infraction. Scott attempted to flee. He ran away. He did not confront Slager or approach Slager in a menacing or any other way. He tried to get away.
This is very important.
The law – which apparently applies only to us and not to armed government workers – requires two things before an ordinary civilian may legally resort to the use of a firearm in self-defense.
First, there must be a tangible threat of great bodily harm – defined as a reasonable belief, supported by objective facts, that one’s life is in immediate danger. The obvious example being confronted by an armed or otherwise threatening individual who has given clear indication he means to hurt or even kill you.
Second, that you cannot get away from the threat (i.e., you – if you’re not an armed government worker – have an obligation to attempt to retreat).
In plain language, the law requires you to demonstrate that you had no choice. That you were acting in self-defense.
How do Slager’s actions stack up?
The facts are that Slager shot a man in the back eight times – a man who clearly posed no threat to Slager. Scott wasn’t challenging Slager. He was trying to get away from him. Nothing would have happened to Slager had he just called it in. Slager wasn’t cringing behind his squad car in fear of his life. He calmly walk-trotted after Scott and shot him in the back eight times, almost casually.
For the “crime” of not obeying Slager’s orders.
Slager is a stone cold killer. He walks up to the body of his victim and leaves a Taser by his lifeless form, so as to have the excuse – Scott was armed! – he knows he will need to whitewash the murder he has just committed.
In law, this is guilty intent.
Does anyone doubt how Slager would have been treated absent the video evidence of his crimes? He would have been lauded as a “hero” who “feared for his safety” and “acted in self-defense” against a violent thug.
The video reveals a violent thug, certainly. But it is not Scott.
If this murder is judicially sanctioned it will be further evidence that armed government workers are a mortal threat to us. That we have very good reason to fear for our “safety” whenever one of these costumed creeps appears.
If they may shoot us down like dogs for nothing more than contempt of cop (Scott’s real “crime”) or because – and Slager actually trotted this one out in court – Scott “.. could have (!) turned around and charged him” – then we have an extremely sound reason to avoid armed government workers at all costs. Instead of pulling over for that broken tail-light or minor “speeding” ticket, a person increasingly has valid reason to drop the hammer – and more – out of fear for his life. Because he has a legitimate fear that the armed government worker could be another Slager – or maybe even Slager himself. (If Slager is not convicted, he could conceivably resume his career as an armed government worker – much like a pedophile priest transferred to a new diocese.)
We are subject to summary execution because we could have challenged/threatened/charged the armed government worker.
Not because we did – or even implied we might. Because we “could have.”
Jesus Christ!
Which is why it is critical that this murderer be convicted and sentenced to prison for at least as long as any ordinary murderer would have been so sentenced. Arguably, Slager’s punishment ought to be more severe as he was acting under color of law, given life-and-death power over other people.
Power he obscenely abused.
And – it appears – may soon get away with having abused.
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Texas CDL HazMat Practice Test
http://driving-tests.org/texas/tx-cdl-hazmat-practice-test/
If you are carrying Division 1.2 or 1.3 materials, how far away must you park from the traveled portion of the roadway?
What is a technical name?
A safe haven is?
How often should you check the tires on a placarded trailer that has dual tires?
The Emergency Response Guidebook (ERG)?
What is the purpose of a driver placarding his or her vehicle?
Trump on Gay Rights
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSVLpzGseXw
Update: This one ends in a mistrial. That does allow for a new trial, if they decide on taking a second shot at him. My guess, they will delay until its politically safer to just let it go. Look for a short press release, on a late Friday afternoon in about a year, when the press won’t notice and most people have forgotten about it.
Sounds like the jury contained one or more people who think the police can do no wrong, even when shown the evidence to the contrary. The video shouldn’t have even been necessary, as anyone not a cop would have been grilled over the fact the bullets all entered the victims back, which makes it hard to think the victim was a threat.
It blows my mind sometimes how many people think that way (police can do no wrong). It’s a good sized part of the population, and yes, it’s a mostly white group. I hate that racism is generally blamed for these things, but its largely white juries that let these cops go on their way.
At least this cop is fired, and off the payroll. But if he doesn’t get a second trial, he could end up as a hero in a new place. No conviction, he could be rehired somewhere else, and on the street again.
The media construct will once again be racism. That way the training and paranoia can be overlooked. The state’s practices can be overlooked. Anyone who says it is the state will be guilty of “white privilege”. So quietly the practices normalize and spread until they are ‘fair’. That is everyone can be shot dead for not being sufficiently submissive. That’s what they are establishing, that this practice is acceptable so they can do it to everyone. But the jurors can’t get through their ‘law and order’ conditioning to see it could be them shot dead and they won’t even have to try to run away.
Hi Brent,
As is always true with the State, its’ self serving activists and its’ compliant media, a narrative must be constructed that creates division among people and prevents alliances from being formed that could effectively challenge the legitimacy of the real culprits.
While I am very sympathetic to the anger felt by the “black lives matter” folks, I despair at the exclusively racial narrative being pushed. This narrative, promulgated by people who have no interest in achieving a “post racial society”, harms all of us while protecting the coercive class. As William Norman Grigg opines, “the problem is not white privilege, but blue privilege”.
Imagine if BLM joined forces with those protesting the murders of Jack Yantis, Kelly Thomas, Devon Guilford, John Livingston and many more. Imagine if those “white folks”, confused and outraged at the murders of their loved ones, could step outside of the “conservative” narrative that those “other people” were thugs who probably deserved it, and join forces with the BLM folks protesting the murders of Eric Garner, Phillip Castillo, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott and many more.
The “liberal” narrative requires explanations based entirely on race and, therefore ignores most stories that don’t support that narrative. The “conservative” narrative requires explanations based on thuggish lawlessness, disrespect for authority and the fictional “war on cops”, explicitly condoning police actions committed against “others” that they would decry if taken against themselves.
Jeremy
Anyone who starts bringing people together gets shot dead. The 1960s proved that. MLK was getting close. Too close. Malcom X was fine until he saw the nature of the scam. He had people believing him, so then he had to go. JFK was becoming a problem on many fronts, he had to go too.
It is of course just a coincidence that all the people the system need to go away to preserve itself went away. Nobody ever shot those who serve the system even though if there were actual rabid lone nuts statistically some of them should have too.
Hi Brent,
Yep, when Malcolm was parroting Elijah Mohammed and proclaiming that the “white man is the devil”, he posed no threat to the PTB. In fact, he was an unwitting ally, as he became the modern personification of the dangerous, violent black man, which scared the shit out of “whitey” and kept them firmly in the law and order camp. It wasn’t until he traveled, met a great number of white muslins, discovered that Elijah Mohammed was a sexual predator and a fraud, and began to question the racially divisive narrative pushed by the NOI and the FBI, that he became a threat.
MLK, because he always preached inclusiveness, was a greater threat than Malcolm. Still, the threat was tolerable until he became staunchly anti-war. He began to see the civil rights struggle as part of a broader struggle against imperialism and war. This threatened to unite younger blacks and whites in a larger cause (many older black veterans of the civil rights struggle were appalled that MLK sought to unite the civil rights movement with a broader anti-imperialist movement).
MLK became increasingly radical, increasingly inclusive and increasingly anti-establishment (of both the civil rights hierarchy and the government). This could not be tolerated.
To paraphrase Randolph Bourne, “division is the health of the State”.
Jeremy
Hi Jeremy,
Yup.
Did you notice in re this Trump’s communique with Taiwan – and the effusion of outrage in certain quarters?
I am not deluded by the Duce. But he is a JFK-like figure, I think. Unpredictable. Which makes him dangerous. Which may make him like JFK in another way….
I am leaning more and more towards Scott Adams’ analysis. Trump is very predictable once you understand him. Adams says other people in positions of political power should and do understand Trump.
Taiwan called him. All he did was answer his phone.
It can’t be the case that Americans aren’t free to answer their own phone.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/804848711599882240
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/804863098138005504
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/805804034309427200
This guy Tom Coates says Trump is going to take away core rights from gay people. I couldn’t figure that out. First, I don’t know what “core rights” are…specifically. How you take them away from gays only someone who can define “core rights” could know. I’m old, white, of Scottish and British descent and the only rights I seem to have is to be taxed to shit for stuff I often don’t understand except other people who identify themselves differently seem to think I owe them and evidently govt. thinks so too. I have the right to die, from any means including govt. healthcare.
I went to the DMV today to get a booklet describing what I need to re-learn to get my HazMat license back. The state wants $11 for something that was part of every other thing you have on your license such as doubles/triples, tanker, and other specialized skills I have but now the HazMat is only part state($11)and mostly a 3rd party(just shy of $100). So, who is the 3rd party? No doubt it will be part of the TSA and your ability to understand the technicalities of hauling various hazardous materials will be attenuated by “passing” some sort of “background check”. I can pay my $100 and still not be approved to understand placarding of various materials. Sounds like the type of thing Hitler and Mussolini would do. Understanding hazardous material is for the “right” political people only. A TWIC card(TSA)is now keeping 30,000 professional drivers from qualifying for jobs they performed all their life before background checks became the most important part of life. I wonder if political and religious zealotry are the new things people will be judged by……officially. What past criminal charges and (here’s the other kicker)your history according to Experia have to do with your ability to perform a job that technically has nothing to do with either? How many people would prefer to be a professional driver if they had a ideal credit report? In the past the badged thugs I’ve known were known for non-payment of debt. Reckon how they stack up now? Judging by common $80K salaries plus all the perks of receiving stolen money from various sources, legal and illegal(well, not illegal for them), I’d say they’d still not pass TSA muster.
Soon we’ll have 18 year olds running everything since they’ve previously not been subject to adult criminal charges. A great picture eh? And controlled by those who can change their history once employed with access to records departments. What a fucked country this has become.
Morning, Eight!
This business of varying rights – based on what’s between your legs (or where you put what’s between your legs or what gets put into what’s between your legs) or the color of your skin is… bizarre, to say the least.
Only problem with dropping the hammer to get away is you’re almost certain to die, or at a minimum, get a real good ass kickin’ if you don’t get away.
Hi VZ,
It depends.
In my area – the Woods – one stands a better-than-decent chance of escaping. I, er, may know something about this… .
In any event, it is becoming dire enough that it’s worth the risk.
Things are out of hand, beyond reason. It is hallucinatory what these armed government workers may (and actually will) do to us. Just mouth the words: officer safety…
It trumps everything.
And officer safety includes anything, including the slightest degree of less-than-abject compliance.
Depends is a good way to put it. In my old rural New England stomping grounds, where I knew every little byway and alley like the back of my hand, I’d be pretty confident of my ability to slip away from porky. Now that I’m in sunny (and shitty) Florida, I don’t think I’d have the balls. All the roads are in a square grid, way too much traffic, and a light at just about every block. Very unlikely to escape ’round here, and with the good ol’ boy POS Sheriffs deputies in this state, you’re gonna be in a world of hurt once they catch up to you. Fortunately I won’t be here much longer, should be moving up to your neck of the woods in the next year or two.
This is what gritsforbreakfst.com has pointed out time and again. That “juror” is a former cop or prosecutor in all likelyhood. These grand juries are rigged this way. It’s not just a Texas problem but an anywhere USA problem. 250 killings by cops in Harris county(Houston)last year and nary a slap on the wrist and there were plenty of these killings on video. Then there’s Dallas, the fourth largest metroplex in the US with Houston being the fourth largest city. Police have a choke hold on the entire populous via stacked grand juries. It’s been impossible to get rid of them so far. Same thing for all the big population centers and even down to 200 population towns. What it is, is a fucked Just US system that’s controlled by the shadow govt. Same reason elections are simply shams.
http://www.unz.com/article/political-sciences-theory-of-everything/
HL Mencken said – and I agree – that at some point, the time comes to raise the Jolly Roger.
I think the time has come.
A well reasoned piece, Eric.
So many of these instances begin with the garden-variety, chicken shit traffic ticket. We made a huge mistake over the decades when we allowed being in a vehicle to be a “privilege” rather than a “right”.
A vehicle has become a constitution-free zone. I don’t have much confidence that we’ll correct that anytime soon: Far too many Clovers out there.
As for Slager, he’ll probably be yukking it up with the likes of Ramos and Cicinelli, the two killers in the notorious Kelly Thomas case.
Thanks, Aljer!
I find myself appalled and depressed by these events. What the hell happened to America?
To Americans?