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CRIME AND CRIMINALS: MURDER HOMICIDE :
POLICE BRUTALITY :
UNITED STATES: STATES: SOUTH CAROLINA :
VIDEOS:
Walter Scott and South Carolina History
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Walter Scott and South Carolina History
By Jack Hitt
The New Yorker
April 9, 2015
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/
walter-scott-shooting-south-carolina
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A shorter URL for the above link:
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http://tinyurl.com/mm9k7l9
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he latest shooting of an unarmed black man by a white police officer comes
this time from North Charleston, South Carolina. On average, the story of
a white officer shooting a black man emerges about twice a week (according
to USA Today, some ninety-six African-Americans were fatally shot by
police every year from 2006 to 2012). There is a kind of familiar panic
that kicks in when one of these shootings occurs, as we all scramble to
fill in the particulars of this now well-known story. We struggle to gauge
just how horrible it is. In this most recent case, the details are
chilling.
On Saturday, a fifty-year-old black man named Walter Scott was stopped for
a minor traffic infraction (a broken taillight). When he fled on foot, a
police officer named Michael Slager nevertheless opened fire. The
policeman fired eight bullets; four hit Scott in the back, one hit his
ear. Scott was handcuffed facedown in the dirt where he died.
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Officer Slager initially said that there had been a scuffle and that Scott
had gotten control of his Taser and so the policeman fired his gun.
Unbeknownst to the officer, a bystander named Feidin Santana filmed most
of the chase, which shows an obviously unarmed man breaking free from a
struggle to flee across open ground, where he is easily shot down by
repeated gunfire. The most bloodcurdling few seconds of the video show
Slager jogging out of camera range and then returning to drop an object
(presumably the Taser) next to the dead mans body, most likely so that his
justifying narrative will make sense.
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The incident had all the ingredients for a classic American racial
cataclysm. There was a minor traffic infraction that a white person would
probably not have been stopped for. Deadly force that would probably not
have been used had the suspect been white. A familiar alibi about a cop
fearing for his life from a raging black man. The rearrangement of
evidence to fit the straw narrative.
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But something else happened not long after the video began to circulate.
The police officer was fired and charged with murder. North Charlestons
mayor, Keith Summey, announced, When youre wrong, youre wrong and said
that police officers cant hide a bad decision behind the shield. He said
that the police forces thoughts and prayers are with the family. North
Charlestons police chief, Eddie Driggers, said he was sickened. South
Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, who rose to office as a darling of the Tea
Party, said that the shooting was unacceptable. Senator Lindsey Graham
called the video horrific. Senator Tim Scott, an African-American
Republican who grew up in North Charleston, called the shooting senseless
and avoidable. The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, known as SLED,
immediately took control of the investigation, and the F.B.I. has opened
its own investigation, as well. The victims brother told the local paper,
We dont advocate violence. We advocate change.
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snip
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Its crucial to point out that had the bystander not turned on his
smartphone camera, that creaky counter-narrativeI thought he was reaching
for my weaponwould almost certainly have given Slager a pass. And no
doubt, the swiftness of the political and narrative unity in the shooting
death of Scott owes much to the lessons of Ferguson. But South Carolina is
not Missouriits racial past, in fact, is more violent, but its attempts to
move away from that history, while less known, have been more bold. The
states history of violence against black men and women is excruciating to
know, or to read. If you are unfamiliar, then Google George Junius
Stinney, Jr., Julia and Frazier Baker, the Hamburg massacre, or the
Orangeburg massacre. That is South Carolina at its worst. But there is a
streak of fair-mindedness in the states historyan ancient ideal that Mark
Twain parodied as coming straight out of the chivalric fiction of Sir
Walter Scotts mist-filled novels of courtly knights. While reserved
exclusively for whites for most of its history, this tendency appears from
time to time and is always surprising, especially to outsiders.
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The complete article may be read at the URL above.
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Sincerely,
David Dillard
Temple University
(215) 204 - 4584
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