The New York Times (4/7/15) released a video of a black South Carolina man Walter Scott being shot, casually and without apparent mercy, eight times in the back by white police officer Michael T. Slager. The media’s outrage after the video’s publication was righteous and swift. The state of South Carolina followed suit, filing murder charges against Slager. Indeed, the video offers no ambiguity whatsoever:
Before this shocking video surfaced, however, most of the local press coverage, per usual, followed the police’s official narrative and amplified a storyline that, in retrospect, was entirely made up.
The Scott shooting, as Think Progress’s Judd Legum pointed out, provides unique insight into the way the police use inherent asymmetry of information to assert their narrative:
Between the time when he shot and killed Scott early Saturday morning and when charges were filed, Slager — using the both the police department and his attorney — was able to provide his “version” of the events.
He appeared well on his way to avoiding charges and pinning the blame on Scott.
Then a video, shot by an anonymous bystander, revealed exactly what happened.
ABC affiliate WCIV: reporting from the police POV.
In all police killings, one side–the victim–is, by definition, dead. So the “both sides” type of reporting we’re so often used to almost invariably becomes a one-sided airing of accounts, facts and selective details from the police side that the corporate media repeats without question. Indeed, Charleston’s local ABC affiliate would begin their report with, what turned out to be, an outright lie:
NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCIV) — A man involved in a traffic stop that turned into a physical altercation with a North Charleston police officer died Saturday after being shot by the officer.
But the New York Times video shows there was no “physical altercation.” There was someone being shot in the back eight times while trying to run away. The report would go on to mix up police assertion with fact again, seemingly inventing witnesses who weren’t there:
Police and witnesses say Scott tried to run from Slager before turning to fight for the officer’s taser. It was during that scuffle that the officer fired his service weapon, fatally wounding Scott.
But what witnesses? I have asked the reporter, Greg Woods, to name the witnesses he documented; as of press time, he has not responded. Woods did not, in any of his reports, actually quote any witnesses saying they saw a “fight.” What appears to have happened is that Woods was told by police there were witnesses and he reported it, uncritically.
CBS affiliate WCSC adopts deceptive police framing of fatal shooting: “He Took My taser.”
In another piece–that, in fairness, did have interviews with the victim’s family–local CBS affiliate WCSC effectively handed the report over to North Charleston police for their uninterrupted retelling of events:
Slager deployed his taser weapon to detain the driver but was unsuccessful, Pryor said.
Police say an altercation then began between Slager and Scott, resulting in a fight for the officer’s taser.
During the fight, Scott gained control of the taser to use it against the officer who then fired his service weapon at the suspect, Pryor said.
While en route, the sergeant reported that he heard Slager say that he deployed his taser and was requesting for back up units, and seconds later reported “shots fired and the subject is down, he took my taser.”
We now know, by the sheer accident of someone filming the event, this narrative was false. We know Scott never “gained control” of a taser, and we know Scott only received medical attention from police minutes after they planted a weapon on him and handcuffed him as he lay dying. But the media, in an effort to report “both sides,” ends up transcribing the deceptive police report verbatim.
While providing an initial qualifier of “spokesman said,” NBC affiliate News 2, would do one better and go on to drop this modifier altogether and simply report the police account as fact:
The officer deployed his department-issued taser in an effort to detain the driver, which was not effective. An altercation between the officer and the driver took place, leading to a struggle over the officer’s taser. During the struggle, the suspect gained control of the taser to use it against the officer.
The officer then discharged his service weapon to stop the threat.
Even though lifesaving efforts were conducted by officers prior to EMS’s arrival and EMS efforts on scene, the suspect was pronounced dead.
We now know this account was categorically false, yet it’s presented in the report as a straight recounting of events. The unnamed reporter doesn’t even bother to run through the motions of quoting police or qualifying these various claims with “police say”; it just becomes, like so many local media accounts in the wake of police violence, a forum for authorities to uncritically provide their perfectly honed–if not at this point cliched–narratives.
“There was an altercation.” “They reached for a weapon.” “The officer feared for his life.” One can practically write the police reports before they do.
What makes this case revealing is that, unlike in so many other cases, video evidence exists that can be contrasted with what can be seen to be a police-created alternative fantasy. A fantasy that had been presented as reality by initial police reports, and thus the media’s subsequent reciting of those reports. Without the video, that fantasy would have almost certainly gone unquestioned.
In a corporate media environment where government officials are routinely given benefit of the doubt while those outside of power are treated with incredulity if not hostility, perhaps the Scott shooting can serve as a stark reminder to crime reporters that in the wake of a police killing, what police say should be treated with as much skepticism as any account offered up by those whose lives and careers are on the line.
Adam Johnson is a freelance journalist; formerly he was a founder of the hardware startup Brightbox. You can follow him on Twitter at @adamjohnsonnyc.
Correction: An earlier version of this post misspelled Judd Legum’s name.
Don’t run from the police. I think everyone is taught that by about the age of 8.
But what you fail to realize Nick is it doesn’t matter if he was running. It is illegal for an officer to shoot someone in the back that does not pose an immediate threat to himself or others. Here’s hoping the officer gets life…..
“Old White Fucks Justify Murder of Black Man News at 7”
“Don’t run from the police” BECAUSE THEY WILL SHOOT YOU??? You’re a bootlicking victim-blaming piece of garbage, aren’t you Nick?
Nick must seriously be a dumbshit, not to mention, naive. I wouldn’t trust any person with a weapon pointed at me. Hence the obvious reaction of attempting to protect his own life by running away. I strongly encourage people to always carry a gun. This happens, and often.
A police state of mind
I watched this horrible video that is now up on dozens of news sites. It’s obviously news worthy in the extreme.
But doesn’t this mean that Google Adsense will have to pull their ads from these sites, given that this is a real, graphic depiction of a murder? Or are we to assume that this is “ok for a child in any region of the world to see?” Or is there, perhaps, some sort of double standard??
http://antiwar.com/blog/2015/03/29/dont-see-evil/
The video does not show that there was no physical altercation prior to the the victim fleeing and the cop murdering him. The video simply does not show a physical altercation. There is a big difference.
Well Not Running did work out so well for Tamir Rice and he was 12 years old…..sooooo I guess that theory is out the window. The only way you can keep from being killed by cops is by changing your race to one they find more desirable.
Just a shame. First story, white story. Fortunately a black man was some where around to get video proof. Can’t wiggle out of this one.
While the video is damning indeed, reflexively blaming the media for initial reports in this case isn’t productive. Some of these outlets did a better job than others in sourcing their information… for instance, the report from WCSC told you police or spokesmen for police were offering that information. That’s good reporting. I’m certain once the video came to light, they reported on that extensively, also.
Surely the outlets want the truth of what happened. But at the time they made their reports, that was the only truth they likely knew. We don’t know if they tried to locate eyewitnesses themselves, but simply couldn’t. And the reality remains, a man was shot dead in their coverage area that day. That is a news story they are going to run with once they hear it, whether they have additional context from police and witnesses or not. Blasting outlets for running the best available information they have at the time of reporting (especially outlets like WSCS that TELL you where the info is coming from) only serves to erode confidence in a media that does also does a lot of good. Put another way: Have you ever questioned “the media” for broadcasting a tornado warning based on best available information, even if a tornado isn’t actually on the ground? Probably not. Apply the same logic here, and it will provide a bit more context into why initial reports often cite police. Best available info at the time.
If a black guy even raises his voice one decibel to a cop …that cop will scream ‘ He’s going for my gun and beat him like Rodney King or shoot him twenty times…. then he will write in the police report ‘He resisted arrest I was in fear of my life.’
Always run from the pigs!
To the people making police corruption and unethical journalism the white side of the issue let me make this perfectly clear, the systemic problem with racial inequality in the justice system and in law enforcement IS NOT white peoples fault its corporate rich Fucks who know how to William Lynch the lower/middle class communities using the same light skin dark skin tactic. That first story is not “the white version”, its the corrupt fascist version. Its the perversion of the justice system version. The second story isn’t “the black version”. Its just the truth exposing a corrupt cop and corporate local news lacking journalistic integrity. Why always waste these political opportunities for another useless racism debate instead of solving the problem with the privatized broken justice system and corporate media. Just sayin.
Except the writer of this article did exactly the same thing that he accuses the “uncritical corporate news” of doing. He made up things that are not shown in the video. To wit: there was no fight. Per the man who shot the video, who has now been identified and given interviews, there was some form of altercation between the policeman and the victim. While it is doubtful that the victim was reaching for the taser there was a fight of some sort. After all, something had to have drawn the videographer there to start filming things in the first place.
What pisses me off was that the whole traffic stop was probably due to the fact that a black man was driving a new Mercedes. The car was 3 days old. What are the odds that it really had “a broken tail light” when it was pulled over?
“But what you fail to realize Nick is it doesn’t matter if he was running. It is illegal for an officer to shoot someone in the back that does not pose an immediate threat to himself or others.”
Sadly Jim, that is not always correct. There are some jurisdictions where it is legal for police to shoot to stop someone from fleeing. I have no idea if this is one of those jurisdictions. And, yes, it’s an asinine law, but it is reality.
The man who shot the video was interviewed by Lester Holt of NBC News and stated that prior to his recording the cop had tased the suspect and that they were fighting on the ground and that the man got up and ran away again as he started recording , which “might” show the taser being knocked out of the cops hands ….
Can someone with Knowledge of the law in that state please post the law about use of force with regards to a fleeing felon? I know it does differ state to state…. Again, while I am GLAD the officer was fired and charged, we, once again, have a case where we don’t know why the man ran in the first place (ie; what took place immediately after he was pulled over), we don’t know what brought about the fight on the ground described by the man who later recorded the incident, we can’t quite tell what was going on with the taser, or why he ran the second time…..While this seems like a MUCH more obvious case of abuse of authority by the police, we have lots of people throwing in what they “feel” might have happened or what they “believe” happened, and identifying this as an execution and attributing this to race….I hope that, at some point, it will get through to people that struggling with and running from cops is dangerous, and while CERTAINLY not always justified, certain cops loose their sh!t when their authority is challenged and people don’t cooperate. PLEASE, PLEASE, people, don’t give them ANY excuse, however weak an excuse it might be, to do you harm .
The comments here are the worst I have ever read on FAIR. A police officer has shot an unarmed man in the back for having a defective tail light. There are no mitigating circumstances. None. What is the matter with you people? A police officer has shot an unarmed man in the back.
To me this is just bloggers, who happen to ally themselves with the Left this time piling on trying to affect the way we look at past events.
Whatever happened in this case including media reaction does not say anything about past events.
Just as we know that a certain number of jet airliners and cars are going to crash, we also know that a certain number of cops are bad or going to commit crimes.
Going back and looking at the media, especially – comparing it to what? – and trying to transform this into a horrendous norm doesn’t wash.
First, yet again, how much people think running from the police is acceptable?
Of those people who say, but people should not be shot for it, and I think we mostly agree, how many really think what would happen if we publicly and nationally said, people are now free to run from the police and face no consequences? Every single thug who wants to get points with his homeys will then take the chance to run.
While I don’t support this police officer, what if he was not feeling well, or he was physically ill on the job and could not chase the suspect, or this was the 10th time that week someone had run? No I don’t agree with shooting someone in cold blood, but I’m saying in this case the blood is not so cold and we have to define and understand the social calculations that an individual police officer and police departments have to make, and where police behavior can be categorized fairly and objectively.
AND … in general I would feel so much better about FAIR if it did not just seem like it was piggybacking in problems in the US in order to wedge and associate problems with Muslims in the Middle East.
The Palestinians are the most constant meme here on FAIR, and most other Leftist sites.
Why are there no Left-wing sites that either leave out or are critical of the Muslims in general and Palestinians specifically?
I wonder if American and Western Left-leaners realize what a mind-screwing this is on everyone to have the Leftist “media” representing terrorists more than I represents Americans?
@RepPress: So what you’re saying is that a tussle over a taser, if there was one, justifies shooting an unarmed man running away from you in the back?
The Feidin Santana video shows a police officer firing eight times at a man running away from him who appears to be empty-handed. This is not acceptable behavior; this is cold-blooded murder, regardless of what might have occurred just before it occurred, and you should be able to understand that.
@press rep (for the N.Charelston PD or the Union ? Which one you lying spamming gas bag?)
NOW comes the spin.. don’t trust your eyes I, the “PRESS REP” can tell you what you saw..there was no “tussle” the homicidal cop uses the taser on the urder victim..the victim runs anyway, the cop drop the taser on the ground the shoots the victim in the back multiple times…the cuffs the dead or dying man.. his NEXT PRIORITY IS NOT TO ASSIST THTE MAN BU TO RUN BACK AND GRAB THE TASER AND PLANT IT ON HIS MURDER VICTIM..go back under the slimy rock you came from “repress”..im sure your services will be in demand when this murderer needs a professional liar in court.
@PAUL HARVEY
LINK!!! where does “the man who shot the video” describe a “fight over the taser”…link it…liar
Now the advocates of police murder are going ape shit!!!.. here’s a video which POINT BY POINT debunks every lie this cop made over the radio..BTW “paul harvey” at what point does the cop say “we’re rolling on the ground fighting for the taser” ?? he doesnt. we see the taser deployed..we see the cop drop the taser when the victim runs…we see the cop commit murder and then plant evidence…PERIOD…keep your eyes on video people..these amoral liars are going to try to come up with anything to justify murder.
@ MATT TARNAWA
“But at the time they made their reports, that was the only truth they likely knew. We don’t know if they tried to locate eyewitnesses themselves, but simply couldn’t. ”
Whether they could or not, they printed that particular (as it turns out lie) as if it were the verified truth..Wouldn’t it have been more responsible not to say there are “witnesses” if no one can find them ??
@Roger Bloyce and @Fessup_youliar Thank you both for engaging the apologists for the killer cop. The officer had the man’s drivers license in hand and the car was effectively in-custody. Whether the man was running because of something the cop said or due to his owing back support payments or even (shudder) whether he had unpaid traffic tickets, there has be no allegation that he was a suspect in any investigation, a fugitive from any authority or armed and dangerous. There was no legal justification for his being shot at, much less being shot dead.
@Kevin Myerson I agree with you regarding the view that one is a black version, the other white. There was a percipient witness to (at the very least) the end of the chase; he was a black cop who was standing over the handcuffed victim, NOT administering CPR. In the pre-video version of events, he is either quiet or in agreement with the tale of the shooter. That cop is as culpable as every other brother officer who, around this country, cover up such criminal activity on a daily basis.
Have the police forces of this country been doing this at the same pace in the past, be we never realized until cellphone cameras came along? That, to me, is the scariest and saddest part of this current spate of citizen assassinations by police.
The SF Chronicle reported that the officer in this case was an ex-SF cop who had been dismissed for sending racist text to fellow officers. So SC got CA’s garbage, and while I’m grateful that SC did immediately arrest this officer, he should never have been on their force to begin with. Nobody who gets more than a 25% score on the Authoritarian scale of personality tests should be allowed to become a police officer.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the Police in this nation are becoming a version of the S.A., the Brown Shirts, self-appointed paramilitary hit squads and strongly self-identified as a group standing against all other people (i.e. civilians.) This culture of abuse must end and the way to do that is to DISARM the Police and leave gunplay to SWAT only.
There is another way to do that, which I am sorry not to have seen yet, and that is the revenge killings and mutilations of all those officers of whatever color who have executed, e.g. black people for the crime of LWB, Living While Black. At the very least, where are the Black Panthers when you need them? Mason McDuffie and a Haitian in Miami, Abner Louima (tortured) and Amadou Diallo in New York, the victim in Ferguson, Oscar Grant in the SF Bay Area and many dozens more than I can list: I think it’s about time the Police started facing the same kind of vigilante justice they mete out to the civil population, and there we have the Crux of the issue: Helter-Skelter, the destruction of Civil Society that will warrant the imposition of a Police State (just more of what we already have too much of.) I think the Neocons who want to sit atop a National Security State are laughing all the way to their banks, because they are getting the social chaos that will benefit their politics.
When the country faces such an emergency, as for example in WWII, the people of the nation clove together – “we are one people” – and extended new concerns and courtesy for each other. That is what we need now, a retreat from the escalating violence, and the first place to start is, as I said, to disarm the Police and stop their siege mentality from escalating further. Disarm them and rename them Public Security.
In the meantime I would insist that any officer ever involved in any shooting not matter how verifiably justified be removed from the force permanently – when a honeybee stings you, it dies – and maybe the concern for having a job will help all officers think twice (or even once) before pulling a gun.
@tarnawa: it was remarked that news outlets reported ‘facts’ second-hand without vetting the facts for themselves. No excuse for that.
By now our country has seen enough of events like this to know there is a systemic problem, and I see no reason not to adopt a posture of “presumed guilty until proven innocent” when it comes to Police using lethal (guns) or potentially lethal (tasers) weapons. If anyone needs to be on the legal defensive, it is the Police who, after all, are charged with upholding the Law.
I agree with @ Kevin Myerson that we should not peg this unwarranted violence solely to racism, but point out that the stories we’re hearing involve white officers killing people of color almost always – so while “the rich” are a major structural cause, racism cannot be denied as a factor. There have been white victims of the same Police misconduct, but far fewer than victims of color.
@brux: “[…] how much people think running from the police is acceptable? […] what would happen if we … said, people are now free to run from the police and face no consequences?”
Not thinking very clearly, are you? The victim was ACCOSTED by a cop and what happened to him proved he was right to run, or he might have been executed on the spot. Who wouldn’t run if the consequence would be to be murdered? And you’re implicitly saying that shooting people in the back is warranted. The victim was on foot. The officer, instead of shooting, could have called other officers in to apprehend the person. The laws need to be fixed to say that shooting people is only warranted to stop an imminent deadly attack on CIVILIANS; and I suggest in our “hang ’em high” culture, any other shooting should impose a mandatory death penalty. Here was one case where if a mob attacked and killed the officer and left his mutilated body for the press to see, that would have been a just outcome. Police are gun-happy partly from always being in fear but it’s very rare that police themselves are in fact attacked; maybe that should change so that Police understand “kill and be killed”, and as I said, might think just once before shooting. If there’s no justice for them then there is no justice.
I am dismayed to have read as many “bow down to authority” comments here as I’ve seen. 3/5 of police I’ve ever encountered have had abusive attitudes toward the public and I think the institution of “The Police” has outlived its usefulness: I don’t trust Police to be human or think straight and I hate the sight of them. I remember when visiting Istanbul seeing the military walking around as police with machine guns. It has become much the same in this country and if there is no accountability for bad police behavior then we are living in a Police State, whose citizens have no guts to complain of it.
Then there’s the lying that surrounded the case. Nothing should mitigate a shooting and all those who lied about the facts in the case should lose their jobs; or else I agree with whoever above said EVERYONE should be armed – against a State that sanctions murders.
@Arthur Nonymous – Re: “I don’t trust Police to be human or think straight and I hate the sight of them.” I’m in my 80s and in recent years have had nothing but demeaning, costly experiences with arrogant, sadistic police officers in lower Westchester County, NY, and Greenwich, CT.
Whenever I see a police car, I turn at the next corner and would advise others to do the same, particularly those who happen to be white haired or dark skinned.
I too am dismayed by comments here by individuals attempting to justify a video that shows a policeman committing a cold-blooded murder.
This is why I am livid with my own local newspaper for merely re-wording but otherwise just parroting official police blotters. It’s lazy and completely defers to the police on a matter that the society EXPECTS journalists to investigate.