It's a real tricky one.

it frustrates the hell out of me when people say police aren't held accountable. They are. He has been.

If the jury decide not to convict what more can they do? They follow the same system as criminals at the end of the day.

I've seen criminals get off with things, don't agree with it but don't go round smashing my town up.

Surprised to see you say that DP. I came here expecting this to be one of the rare times I agree with you.

Could the video help the officer? The officer is claiming he believed the suspect had taken his stun gun and so was armed and fleeing. I think this may be covered under the US Deadly Force laws... I could be wrong.

The video seems to show a struggle. An object is thrown behind the officer (presumably the stun gun) by which point the officer is already reaching for his fire arm. The suspect has began to run away and the officer opens fire. At no point has he looked behind him. He then walks to the victim.. secures him after ordering him to put his arms behind his back.. probably already unconscious at that point. It's only now that he retraces his steps and seems to jog over and pick up the object (presumably the taser).

Will this be enough to convince a jury that he thought the suspect had his taser?

In a way it sort of reminds me of the Mark Duggan case. Officer believes the suspect is armed, doesn't realise he's discarded the firearm and shoots him.

I'm NOT defending anything or anyone here btw. Just saying that the video may not be enough to prove the officer knew the suspect was unarmed at the time he was shot.

I cant see any justification here. Even if he'd got the taser, he was running away, and was not an immediate threat to anyones life.

I don't know the US law, so cant forecast what will happen, but over here, you cant shoot someone who is running away in the back, unless there are proper grounds to believe someones life is under immediate threat.

I cant defend such actions, but it depends who does the shooting for some posters of course. (Tony Martin, and his fan club)

I don't see any similarities with Duggan. The Officer thought there was an immediate threat to life.

As far as the video goes of course is that you don't see everything that happens, but in this case, it is pretty damning.

I read this on wiki:

"Deadly force...may not be used unless necessary to prevent the escape and the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious bodily harm to the officer or others."

So yes I suppose the officer would need to prove he felt the suspect was a threat to others. I was also surprised to read the victim is 50. Expected much younger.

The taser isn't a lethal weapon so even if it had it, I don't see that as justification for shooting someone.

The taser had already gone off (you can see the wires are out as it falls). According to other articles, it was the officer himself that had fired it. AFAIK you can't just re-arm a taser quickly and use it again so if the suspect had it, how useful would it be?

Lastly, the officer picks up the taser and puts it next to the man's body in order to back up his story. He obviously knew what he was doing and deserves to be charged for his reckless and fatal response.

He had problems paying child support so had been arrested and jailed in the past.

Horrendous

Our police may not be perfect but we have a lot to be grateful for.

They have to make sure justice is done this time.

He didn't actually grab the taser. The taser prongs were also found embedded in his back along with the bullets. That was a lie put out by the murderer and the official line - until the video revealed differently. People do lie to get away with Murder and obviously police are in the perfect place to plant evidence to back up their tales and spread nasty innuendos abd release private information about their victims.

Reminds me of it too. Shame there was no videoed there too.

Here's the local news. Sometimes it's interesting to get a local slant.

http://www.live5news.com/

There's a live rally link on there.

thank goodness for the video, is all I can say. without it, how many people can honestly say they wouldn't have believed the policeman's story? it really does make you wonder how many times they have gotten away with it in the past. the fact that, even with the evidence available, people are still questioning why the murder victim ran attempted to run away, and speculating over presumed criminal activity just blows my mind. the ONLY thing in any way relevant here is whether or not he presented enough of a threat to cause his murderer to fear for his own life. that's 100% not the case here, and we all seem to be in complete agreement, but I dread to think of what the conversation would've been had there been no video.

this isn't the first time American police have been filmed murdering a black man on camera though, so I won't be taking anything for granted until he's actually been found guilty.

The videographer should get an award.

Open season on black people out there, putting the tazer down beside the body is pretty damming.

What has the colour of his skin got to do with it?

He owed some alimony apparently .

What was that falling on the ground then?

Sorry but that seems like a complete straw man to me.

I see nothing in this incident which reflects "gun culture" at all.


Again, you seem to be asserting that's excessive in some way and you seem to be assuming it's the result of stress when, in fact, it was a completely rational and planned use of a firearm to do a specific job.

JCDM was thought to be carrying a bomb which had a hand-held trigger and the police used firearms in a manner intended to cause traumatic shock to the brain-stem and severe the spinal column in order to minimise the possibility of any such trigger being activated either deliberately or reflexively.

It's certainly a rather grisly subject to discuss but I guess that's always likely to be the case when considering methods of taking a life.

I was generalising... Take guns away you don't get trigger happy cops doing bad things. Not difficult.

The video may exonerate him, If a guy struggles with an officer and reaches for that officer's taser, then it could be argued he was defending himself, even though the guy was running away and had dropped the taser.

I bet this guy will have an arrest sheet as long as route 66.

See this all the time on Ride Along Cop Shows, black guy is stopped, then he makes a run for it , why, what's he got to hide ?

Generalisations are easy to make.each case is differnt like Ferguson which in the end was the right result and the officer was exonerated. In this case it's too early to say as we don't have the full facts..a couple of press reports isn't enough to make a sound judgement

You won't be taking anything for granted but have twice declared the officer a murderer. No need for a trial, the court of digitalspy has spoken. Guilty.

Whilst I have to say that what's shown in the video is terrible and I would think amounts to murder, it doesn't tell the whole story.

What happened between when the guy was stopped in his car and he ended up being tazered? Were he and the cop just having a quiet friendly chat beforehand?

As I say, from what's shown in the video, it certainly appears that the cop was in the wrong, but I feel there are a lot of questions that remain unanswered.

I'm reading elsewhere that Slager had had complaints made about him in the past about use of unnecessary force. Is that something most officers will have leveled against them at some point or is that unusual?

His only known arrests were for non payment of alimony and not turning up to court. Hardly a master criminal.
I can't believe people are defending this!

and this, of course, completely justifies shooting him


I can...