And Again

[Content Note: Police brutality; racism; eliminationist violence.]

Over the weekend, 50-year-old Walter Scott, a black man from North Charleston, South Carolina, was shot and killed by Patrolman Michael Thomas Slager, a white police officer, after Slager had pulled over Scott for a broken brake light. (Another municipal violation.) This was the police account of the shooting in early news reports:

A statement released by North Charleston police spokesman Spencer Pryor said a man ran on foot from the traffic stop and an officer deployed his department-issued Taser in an attempt to stop him.

That did not work, police said, and an altercation ensued as the men struggled over the device. Police allege that during the struggle the man gained control of the Taser and attempted to use it against the officer.

The officer then resorted to his service weapon and shot him, police alleged.

That was before a witness video surfaced [CN: footage of deadly shooting], showing what really happened. Which is Scott running away from Slager, and Slager shooting eight rounds at his back, hitting him five times. Scott falls to the ground, and Slager goes to him, not to offer medical assistance, but to handcuff him. He then returns back to where he was standing when he shot Scott, picks up his Taser, and then returns to where Scott is lying face-down in the grass, handcuffed and dying, and plants the Taser near his body.

It is a textbook example of what witnesses have alleged—and what people fear—that police do after officer shootings all the time.

Slager will now "be relieved of his duties in the near future. Mayor Keith Summey confirmed Slager will also be charged with murder."

Which doesn't mean he will be convicted, even if he makes it to trial. And even if he is convicted, that will still not be justice: "Legal charges and bloated prison cells can never make up for the loss of black lives. Death is not justice. Black people alive is."