A simple mistake between two police-related threads, as my reply was delayed during formation with other things. Nothing for you to read too much into.

I rarely do read much into baseless speculation.

Baseless speculation made by others, albeit on another thread. I made none.

Yes, which brings us neatly back to the part about it being you who recounted it on this thread...

And like I said, a simple mistake between two police threads, being distracted during post composition. But I didn't introduce any baseless speculation.

Well, you did....

No, I took the speculated percentage of others and expanded on what it would mean as a number of officers; but as stated, in the wrong thread.

No need to 'speculate'. The figures can be found in this IPCC report which is where i assume the poster got them from.

https://www.ipcc.gov.uk/sites/defaul...2_May_2012.pdf

Thanks. Interesting reading. Just wish I'd got the right thread!

Time to retire...

As I posted earlier, the cop shot him in the back for no reason. The cop murdered him.

The cop knew who he was as he had his licence

Historical distrust of the police


Varies a lot, at the county level being a police officer can be poorly paid.

I believe the witness referred to was the guy who shot the first video. He doesn't seem like a 'malcontent'.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-32237544

This is another missing part of the puzzle. It shows what happened when he was pulled over by the police.

How about a situation where blacks are treated fairly? Or would you rather the system continued to treat them as inferior citizens instead? that's what "people like Al Sharpton" and "the number of people waving placards around" are concerned about.

I've not seen the dash cam video, but from the way it was described by another poster, I'm still not seeing how Slager can say he feared for his life or the safety of the public?

In a way, the first part of the incident is irrelevant, what happens later in the first video we had, is arguably more relevant. By the time he shoots him, Slager knew Scott was unarmed, and had no weapon. As they had already ran from the original scene, Slager knew Scott wasn't exactly the fittest or quickest so was hardly going to outrun him over a longer distance. I just don't see how he can justify saying that shooting him was the only or correct course of action.

As was already mentioned, the dash cam showed that the officer was actually very friendly towards Scott, there doesn't appear to be any racist motivation here.

If we always view every incident between black and White people as racist or that someone is being treated unfairly then we will never put cut racism.

On face value this appears to be an idiot trigger happy cop who unlawfully shot a man. The colour of the skin is irrelevant unless you choose to make it relevant.

Jim Crow, segregation, apartheid , and lyncings are all associated with ex-British colonies and the system under British rule was brutal.

The reason why historically there were no such formalised practices in the UK was because there were so few non-whites here not for any other reason. Anywhere the British went that there were non-whites they put in place methods of formal discrimination backed up by terror and brute force.

When it comes to police corruption we have bigger problems than the U.S. for several reasons

1) They at least acknowledge it and the problem is openly discussed. And there is a movement to improve accountability and that movements includes politicians who are enacting changes.

2) they have a federal system which can ultimately intervene and provide oversight when regional corruption or community relations become overstrained.

3). They have a more diverse press and greater press freedom. Less cosines between press, police and judiciary. Partly due to their constitution but also due to the scale of the country.

4) Due to the size of the U.S. the establismdnt isn't as insular and interconnected as in the UK. For example they wouldn't need to import a foreign judge in order to find someone without links to corruption or suspects because they are part of the ruling class. That's a far bigger hurdle to achieve for anyone wanting an impartial enquiry than asking a trial to moved or calling in federal authorities.

I think the U.S. Has more cop killings because more police are armed not necessarily because they are more corrupt than in the UK. Lets not forget that when Ian Tomlinson was murdered in the most heavily cctvd area in the world it was a tourist who released film that led to the minimal response that did happen. The police claimed there were no cameras!

And like this case it turned out that past misdemeanours had been brushed under the carpet.

The problems in the U.S. and here are parallel. We don't have any cause for complacency.

And? I thought you might have some insight into this rather than regurgitating what is already known.

If the penalty for running away from a police officer is death, we've got serious problems.

the historical context cannot be ignored, no matter how much you'd like it to be. I've already said it's the systemic racism that is more the problem here, and not necessarily that the cop in question was a fully paid-up card-carrying member of the local KKK branch. for a start, there was no reason for the stop as law in South Carolina only requires one working tail-light, which I believe the car had. could racial profiling have played a part? it's quite possible, and maybe even probable. would Slager's version of events - namely that he was in fear for his life - have been considered credible had the victim been a 50 year old white man rather than a black man? does the knowledge that this kind of situation is very easy to cover up and explain away play a part, subconsciously or otherwise, at the point he decides to shoot? there are way too many questions that arise as a result of this incident for the colour of the victim's skin to just be dismissed as irrelevant. it's can't, and it's incredibly naive to think otherwise, just because the officer initially appears "friendly" towards the victim.

Perhaps the fact that he was on camera influenced his behaviour? He seemed quite comfortable shooting Scott when he thought he wasn't on camera.

Indeed.

It seems like these people never take the time to stop and think "Meh, we'll send a car around to his house and pick him up later".

Instead, they get too caught up in the whole "Respec' mah authoratay!!!" thing and, in the heat of the moment, they use their firearms to get their own way.

I am not suggesting that the colour of the victim's skin was relevant on this occasion but to say it was irrelevant based on the dash cam evidence is rather naive as, presumably, the officer knew the dash cam was there and working. I am assuming that even racist officers do not deliberately implicate themselves by OPENLY displaying racist behaviour.

Should have read your post first before posting mine, shouldn't I?

The point isn't so much whether or not the cop is a closet racist as that there's nothing about the initial interaction which might reasonably make a black person think that they're likely to be treated unjustly and decide to flee.

why is that relevant though?