Once, after a high-speed car chase and foot pursuit through one of San Francisco’s tougher housing projects, an officer handed what we’d thought was a lethal looking Tec-9 machine pistol to a winded reporter, who demurred.
The confiscated gun, which turned out to be a very good replica, was locked away with others in a beat car. “Never know when you’re going to need another gun,” an officer, later fired from his department for burglarizing a quickie photo development store, said at the time.
Additional years in police cars and housing projects uncovered a loose name for such guns, often cheap, untraceable knockoffs which came to be known by the public at large as “Saturday Night Specials.” In police lexicon, we learned, they were also known simply as “throwdowns.”
The name implies their intended use. To be dropped or “thrown down” at a crime scene in the event an officer needed a quick – if unlawful and foul – way to prove an unarmed suspect had in some way threatened their life. In some cases, the use of a throwdown meant the difference between job retention and a return to duty – or dismissal and, in extreme cases, jail.
Saturday’s shooting of an apparently unarmed man shown in a stunning video released soon after the killing captured what many have believed has been happening on American streets for years – up to and including an apparent throwdown by the police officer.
In the video, North Charleston, S.C., police officer Michael Slager is shown firing eight rounds into the back and buttocks of 50-year-old Walter Scott, shown fleeing from the officer after their final, fatal contact in a weedy alleyway. Scott apparently had an outstanding Family Court warrant out for him. Slager reported by radio that Scott had made a grab for his Taser and, in fact, the video depicts two objects – one that looks like a Taser and another like a black baseball cap – on the ground near where the two men first made contact.
The video picks up as Scott begins running from Slager, and the officer drawing his weapon and opening fire. A bystander, whose name was not given and who – miraculously – was not chased off by Slager or other officers responding to the scene, continues to film as Slager hurries back to where the cap and presumed Taser are on the ground, picks up the device and throws it on the ground near where Scott lies bleeding from several wounds.
We will admit to saying “there it is” the first time we saw the video. A throwdown. On camera.
The officer has been charged with Scott’s murder. North Charleston’s mayor announced the state charges at a news conference Tuesday evening. His police force, arrayed in phalanx behind him, appeared stricken.
Slager is currently in jail stripes. The trial process, and additional scrutiny of his case and all its implications, lie before him. For many, however, the exclamation point to a long-uttered claim of police abuse has been added – by who we presume was a kid with a smartphone cutting through a weedy back lot in North Charleston, S.C.
It wasn’t a conventional ‘throwdown’. He seems to have moved the taser from place of initial scuffle to where he could later claim deceased was running away with it. Frankly that didn’t shock me as much as the immediate aftermath. It’s as if there’s an unwritten rule that once shooting happens, it’s better suspect dies
Pretty crazy, you have to wonder how many times it’s been done before. And how many people have gotten away with it.
It was pretty obvious he was moving the Taser closer to where the body fell to make a case for shooting the man where he did instead of having to say the man was running away from him at the time. Horrible.
I was watching the first officer to show up on the scene, who happened to be a black officer. I was wondering what he was going to do. The whole sequence is excruciating.
I am wondering about the contrast with Ferguson. There after multiple investigations it was proven that “hands up, dont shoot” was a fiction and that the officer was justified in his response. Yet it was an emotional firestorm with the Al Sharptons and the tabloid media outlets rushing to damning judgements of the police officer. Here you have a white police officer clearly committing the murder of a black man(and trying to cover it up) on video and the same cast of characters are pretty subdued. Whats up with that?
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Put your hands behind your back!!
I’m sure it’s not the first time this has happened. It’s just the first time its been caught on film.
It’s almost as if the police don’t see the person with the phone camera. He seems to be moving closer all the time and at one point even appears to jump that fence. But if they notice and they don’t seem to show it.extraordinary piece of video.
The part I found most chilling was the the S.O.P. of yelling “hands behind your back” at the corpse– as if he were ever a threat. Something is deeply wrong with our police state. I think we need a complete reboot of the composition of our police forces and their culture/practices.
disturbing on so many fronts.
Despicable
Meh. Charges and arrest mean nothing. Dan White was arrested and charged with first degree murder but only convicted of voluntary manslaughter because sugar and crying like a school girl. Murdered two people execution style in cold-blood and was only sentenced to seven years of which he served five.
I’ll believe justice was served in this case when I read there was a guilty verdict on a murder charge. But, I won’t be holding my breath. Experience has taught me that jurors can be incredibly stupid.
Additional video released today. Doesn’t justify what eventually happened but it shows what led up to it: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/09/us-usa-police-idUSKBN0N022Z20150409?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=twitter
And more video coming out today from Southern California with deputies down there putting the boot to some poor guy. You would think police would be on their best behavior right now but it all just doesn’t seem to matter.