We’ve heard the lie before.
When accused murderer and former North Charleston Patrolman Michael Thomas Slager’s lawyer said his client “felt threatened,” it wasn’t his life that had been threatened. What was threatened was his sense of authority. Sometimes, that can be the beginning of a life-ending escalation.
Running away is a threat to some officers’ sense of authority. It certainly was a factor in the death of Walter Lamer Scott, a 50-year-old veteran and father of four. Scott was unarmed, though it appears that Slager, thirty-three, tried to plant the taser he used on Scott near his body to corroborate his tale of the dead man trying to use the taser on him.
Unfortunately for Slager, a young barber, Dominican immigrant Feidin Santana, on his way to work with his camera phone in his hand, captured the crime on his device.
The video shows Slager firing eight shots at a fleeing Scott. Four bullets hit Scott in the back and one hit him in the ear. Two of the shots were fatal.
Santana proved what many blacks take as gospel: Police lie.