Once again an unarmed Black man has died at the hands of a White police officer.  This time the shooting took place in North Charleston, South Carolina after a routine traffic stop.  The unfortunate victim was 50-year-old Walter Scott and the policeman who shot him was 33-year-old Officer Michael Thomas Slager.

Officer Slager fired eight bullets at Mr. Scott as he fled hitting him in the back and killing him.  To make matters worse, Officer Slager – after handcuffing Mr. Scott as he lay dying on the ground, jogged back to the spot where Mr. Scott first broke free of him and picked up an item which he then took and dropped beside Mr. Scott’s body.

At the time, Officer Slager told Dispatch that Mr. Scott grabbed his taser and he shot him.  He later reported that he feared for his life and that is why he shot Mr. Scott.  Those in authority accepted Officer Slager’s version of what occurred as the truth and dealt with the community and press accordingly.  What Officer Slager did not realize was that someone had videotaped the entire incident as it occurred after he chased and caught up with Mr. Scott.

When the video surfaced and revealed that Officer Slager had not told the truth about this encounter, to their credit, the Mayor and Chief of Police withdrew their support of Officer Slager, fired him, charged him with murder and he was arrested.  If convicted he could be sentenced to 30 years – life in prison.  This was a tragedy that left at least two families deeply hurt and grieving for a loved one.

Although for the greatest part African-American males have been the victims of this overly aggressive policing, for the purpose that this article is seeking to accomplish, I encourage the readers not to take sides or get involved in a debate as to which family is hurting the most or make our main focus the fact that it was a White police officer that killed an unarmed Black man.  Those things are obvious.

What we need to do, and can do, without marginalizing the fact that a life was lost and that that lost life – Mr. Walter Scott, was not faceless and nameless and that it left behind a grieving mother along with other family members, is focus on equal justice under the law for all people.

The point of this article is to encourage all of us to do all that we can to begin to restore the trust between the police and the communities that they serve and protect across this entire country.  The police have a lot to do in order to restore that trust but as members of our various communities, so do we.  Clean cops must stop protecting dirty cops due to misguided loyalty or the fear of being left without backup by their fellow officers when they need it because they have been labeled as unworthy because they have violated the ‘blue code’.

This is a tough choice but it is one that the police must make if they are to regain the communities’ trust.  There are many more clean cops than dirty cops and that ‘many’ must determine that they will not continue to be bullied by the few.

As for those of us who live in these communities that police officers risk their lives each day to serve and protect, we must allow them room to use whatever amount of force is truly required to serve and protect us.  We must also realize and accept the fact that the amount of force required to subdue a subject may sometimes involve injury to that person or even death.

This does not preclude the fact that we must always be vigilant and when necessary, scrutinize and question the circumstances surrounding any situation where police attempt to arrest someone and that attempt involves injury or death.  Such scrutiny should not need to be motivated by color but by the desire to assure that there is equal justice under the law for all.  If community members allow police officers the previously mentioned room to exercise their professional judgment and scrutinize and question only those encounters that truly warrant it, this should begin to restore police officers’ trust in communities.

Finally, as a result of what just happened in North Charleston, South Carolina, many have reflected on other situations involving excessive force by police officers throughout the country and asked in the North Charleston situation; what if there was no video?  As I reflect on the many questionable occurrences where a police officer’s version of what happened has outweighed that of the alleged perpetrator along with that of witnesses, it gives me pause.

Police officers have a tremendous amount of power over our lives and can instantly determine whether we live or die.  Yet their word is readily taken almost without question when they make a decision that requires injuring someone or killing them.  This is difficult enough to accept even if police officers throughout America had a stellar record when it comes to truthfulness, which they do not.

Usually when those who are either criminals or have been accused of a crime are judged in a court of law, their past record is taken into consideration in an effort to determine their truthfulness, guilt or innocence and, possibly, even the amount of time they must serve if they are found guilty.  If they have a past criminal record and have been proven to be liars in the past, this would have a major impact on a judge and jury’s decision.  Why shouldn’t this same standard apply to policemen and police departments?

Since too often some police officers have been found to either distort the truth or completely lie and some police departments are subject to look the other way in order to protect the department’s reputation, isn’t it past time to stop automatically giving a police officer’s version of a situation an extraordinary amount of weight versus that of others who either witnessed it or were involved in it?

And isn’t it past time to stop allowing police departments to police themselves in light of the vested interest that they have in protecting the police department?  At least until police departments and their police officers can come to grips with the ‘blue code’ and how to effectively deal with it, our society needs to find a way to better verify and substantiate statements given by police officers involved in arrests; especially those that involve injury or death.

Eulus Dennis