The video that, according to the New York Times, resulted in Officer Michael T. Slager being charged with the murder of a working-class black American, Walter Scott, recalls a core scene in Kathryn Bigelow's 1995 cyberpunk thriller Strange Days.

In that movie, there is a device, a SQUID (for superconducting quantum interference device), that captures a person's visual and auditory experiences from his/her brain's magnetic field and records the information on a MiniDisc—the futuristic storage technology of that time. There is a black market for these videos, which are often pornographic or violent. One night, a famous black rapper, Jeriko One, is murdered by a white police officer (Vincent D'Onofrio). The murder is witnessed by a young woman who, unknown to the officer, is wearing a SQUID under a wig. She flees the scene and spends much of the movie fearing for her life. A major part of the plot is making the video of the murder available to the public.

What I could not help noticing last night is that the shaky footage of Jeriko One's murder looks very much like the shaky footage of Walter Scott being shot in the back. The recording device, however, is not on the head of the witness but in their hand, their smartphone. Officer Michael T. Slager was denied bail.