The latest shooting of an unarmed Black man is FINALLY being called MURDER. The latest cover of Time Magazine is perhaps its most timely and socially conscious one in recent history. On Tuesday, a cell phone video surfaced of an unarmed White police officer in Charleston, North Carolina shooting an unarmed Black man in the back as he ran away! The officer, Michael T. Slager, has been charged with murder and fired from the Charleston Police Department.
The officer, 33, said he feared for his life after the man took his stun gun after a brief scuffle during a traffic stop on Saturday. The video, however, shows the officer firing eight times as the man, Walter L. Scott, 50, fled. The North Charleston mayor announced the state charges at a news conference Tuesday evening! This shooting comes on the tail of other high profile police shootings that have divided the country along racial and political lines. However, this time around the evidence seems irrefutable.
Where would we be without that video?” Slager’s family attorney Justin Bamberg asked. David Von Drehle wrote in his article for Time; “The answer to that question is important…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—famous cases, like the killings of Eric Garner in New York and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and other cases that barely register in the police blotter.” Moving forward all policemen in Charleston will be required to wear body cameras.
One has to wonder how this case will be dealt with. Will there finally be justice, or is this the case to finally tip minority communities into revolt? Black Lives Matter and finally someone besides Black men and women are saying it!
