Executed for a Broken Taillight (in 2015?)

The Corporate Justice Blog often takes up issues of wrongheaded carceral policy and the need for  policing reform in the United States.  Ultimately, for us, the issues of discrimination in policing and the perverse incentives inherent in for-profit incarceration are not just social justice issues, but also economic issues and portend a difficult economic road ahead if we as a nation cannot get out in front of these very real  and very old problems.

Take for example the killing of Walter Scott in North Charleston, South Carolina.  Before the video became public, the story told by police officer Michael Slager was one of justified killing.  “He took my taser” was his tagline and “I was in fear for my life” would have been the testimony, just as it was for a carefully-coached officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson.  However, here, the video simply cannot support a story of “stolen taser” and “fear for life.”  The video shows Officer Slager shooting a slowly running away Walter Scott in the back eight times.  Any reasonable viewing of the video shows a calm and callous Slager not only firing eight times without giving further chase, but then that Slager later picks something up that was at his feet when shooting, carries it to the prone Scott and drops it down next to the body (the taser?).  Officer Slager has been charged with murder.  Video is here.

Friend of the Corporate Justice Blog Law Professor and Vice-Provost Dorothy Brown discusses the events above and deconstructs them for CNN in “Did Cops Learn From Mistakes of Ferguson?” posted earlier today.  Professor Brown writes: