Comments

1
Well, the NRA kind of gives a shit, just not in the way you're saying. This is great news for them, it means more people will be buying guns and ammo.

The NRA is the modern day Assassin's Guild.
2
The crux of the matter:
Officer Yanez told him not to reach for the weapon, and Mr. Castile and Ms. Reynolds both tried to assure the officer that he was not doing so.


So Castile was reaching for his wallet to produce his driver's license. The officer should have said that producing the license wasn't necessary at that moment.

I don't think the officer's life was in danger, but it looks like he as "trigger-happy" plausibility to make that case.
3
Is this the jury's fault, or the prosecutors fault?
4
We are on the precipice of an entirely rational legal defense that people - especially minorities - should shoot police officers if the officer acts even a little bit inexperienced or cagey... shooting first would be a legitimate act of self-defense.

This whole racist country should take a knee.
5
Slog commentary is having trouble sticking today.
6
@2 If you've seen the video, the officer was pants-shittingly terrified. It's an important distinction from being 'trigger-happy'. he was terrified because he wasn't trained properly; and because he was trained to be afraid of black people, and he was trained to shoot if he felt scared. Yanez is the culmination of a lot of things that are wrong with the police system in this country; and odds are he was probably a decent person. The real perpetrators will continue to skate clean. Decent folk often become Avatars of terrible things.
7
Fucking absurd, clearly racist.
8
2nd Degree Manslaughter was an entirely reasonable charge. Couldn't even get that out of a jury.

The civil suit will cost the department dearly.
9
The comments seem to be only fucked up in chrome, but they've been fucked up (in chrome) all day. Can someone from your guys tech team look into it?
10
@9

But would that fix Slog?
11
What a week!

What is the takeaway from the members of congress being shot and this latest ridiculous decision? This country thinks of itself as the wild west.

Paul Ryan and Nancy Pelosi nearly in tears--“One of our own!”

Rand Paul calling the baseball diamond a “Killing field.” Really? When did you serve and understand the terms kill box or killing field? Or were you in Cambodia under the Pol Pot regime?

The same day, three UPS drivers are slaughtered at their workplace. They had no security guards...the rest got away by jumping on a public bus.

As long as these Repubs can work in a gun-free zone-the capitol and office buildings FILLED with armed security, many in suits, they just don’t get it that WE all get to work in a killing field each day.

93 people die in the USA every day by guns. >180 are seriously injured--many paralyzed from the neck down. We are shot with weapons of war but don’t get rehab at a VA hospital or get free medical care for life.

The USA has one-third of ALL mass shootings in the world. We have a 25 times greater chance of dying by gunfire than any other country.

An 8 year old and 13 year old were shot today in Chicago. Where’s the national news on that? I am sick of these pampered members of congress. To hell with them and their stupid “bipartisan baseball game.” They are STILL going to screw over >20 million people with this rushed health bill. They are taking away Medicaid which two-thirds of Americans depend on for end of life nursing homes/assisted living facilities.

They only care about themselves and cutting taxes for the wealthy. Oh but NOW they can blame lib’rals for the shooting! The FBI couldn’t keep track of the theats against the Obamas on a daily basis. Even Trump’s butler and “historian” at Mar-A-Lago wrote Facebook Posts that the Obamas including the daughters needed to be lynched outside their White Mosque. Equating the vitriol from the right with three episodes from the left is BS.
12
As a very thoughtful sounding juror said in an interview, remember, YOU did not see all the evidence we did or receive an in-depth understand in exactly what the law says.

Please remember that before forming a knee-jerk reaction to this verdict based on your own mostly uninformed (and I count myself in that group) opinions.
13
If the officer wasn't qualified to judge a threat accurately -- around a black man, in particular -- then the people who certified him to carry a gun were negligent. The buck has to stop somewhere.

And I could not fucking believe that the jury let Slager off​for shooting Scott in the goddamn back..
15
Shouldn't have gone to court in the first place, only went there because of political pressure. They knew they wouldn't get a conviction, yet they push this everytime. The Dems have a real issue trying to appease their base while they rile up and set unrealistic expectations for that base.
16
Smug dudes: "actually, the laws around this make it hard to get a conviction even of a bad cop, I will educate you."

Others: "um, you're educating me the system is fucked?"
17
Well, he won't be working as a police officer anymore, so I guess that's some small consolation...
18
I think this issue is one of (lack of) proper training, but also lack of proper accountability. The police force that employs this officer should KNOW how ready he is (or isn't) to handle such situations. Having a citizen tell you there's a licensed weapon in the car is not an unusual incident. It's pretty common, and it is the proper way for the citizen to handle the situation. He freaked out and killed an innocent man. He also endangered the lives of the other innocent people in that car. There are many excellent officers in the world, but if they don't hold their own accountable then they are part of the problem.
19
@6: This.
Regardless of lawful versus unlawful, police officers shouldn't be shooting at every shadow. It's understandable that a private citizen might panic and use more force than is in retrospect necessary, but an officer of the law shouldn't. Police officers train to assess situations, to evaluate threats and determine the appropriate level of force to use. Those who rely on the gun rather than their training to stay safe shouldn't be on the force.
20
It's quite clear that the police and most of the American public have decided that lynching by cop is perfectly acceptable. Cops will continue to murder black people and in the rare instances where cops are indicted and prosecuted, they will be let off the hook by the jury. Basically, AmeriKKKa condones the hunting and murdering of black people -men, women, and children. What the f*** are we going to do about it? How are we going to make it stop? I have no f***ing clue. I do know if citizens begin murdering cops every chance they get because they are scared of the police, it's just going to cause more cops to murder citizens. So we've got a racist, violent standoff in a s***stain of a country that only cares about two things: MONEY and VIOLENCE. I look forward to the day I die and I no longer have to exist in this cesspool called humanity. On a grander scale, the best thing that will ever happen in the history of the universe will be when humans cease to exist. Period. One can only hope it happens much, much sooner than anyone anticipates (Stephen Hawking says 100 years, but I'm guessing he assumes we all survive Donald Trump and his administration and the GOP led congress currently in charge).
21
Even in a deep blue city like Minneapolis cops operate like death squads targeting and assasinating POC. "Good Cops," to the extent they even exist, would call bullshit on these racist killers if they weren't afraid of being similarly targeted for breaking the code of silence.
22
I wish there could be a version of Dan's "It Gets Better" for black and brown kids. Only... it doesn't. Not here, not now.

Please wait...

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