I'd like to read the officer's official report on what happened, to see how it compares to the video. It'd be interesting to see who well the two accounts do or do not mesh.
Anybody got a link to something like that? I haven't been able to find one. But I think it's really telling that the officer's arrest happened less than an hour after the video was provided to the city and police officials. If his official report actually matched the events in the video and he had provided some kind of justification that also matched the events as they occurred, then I doubt that the arrest would have happened that fast. But if he lied and put it in his official report? Yeah, I can see an arrest happening lightening quick.
Slager was arrested less than an hour after the video, taken by a bystander, was provided to city and police officials. At a Tuesday news conference, North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey said the decision to charge the officer came after viewing the footage.
Having to charge an officer is "not something that we like to hear or like to say but it goes to say how we work as a community: When you're wrong, you're wrong and if you make a bad decision, don't care if you're behind the shield or just a citizen on the street, you have to live by that decision," Summey said.
And quite frankly...I think the victim's family is handling this remarkably well, all things considered:
"I think through the process, we have received the truth. We can't get my brother back, and my family is in deep mourning for that," Anthony Scott added. "But through the process, justice has been served. I don't think all police officers are bad cops, but there are some bad ones out there."
I spent 9 years of my 20 year Navy career in the Charleston and I still feel somewhat attached to that area and the people who live there. My prayers go with the victim's family and I hope the typical national bloodhounds don't end up trying to inflame things in the area (though I doubt this case will head in that direction).