Escudo de Cabo Rojo
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The dashcam video is now out showing the fateful traffic stop that cost Walter Scott his life and Michael Slager his life-as-he-knew-it. It is tragic, obviously, not least because we watchers can view it with Imminent Horror firmly lodged in our gullets but because we can see the mundane warp, like a bad dream, into the terrible. Already many people have asked, why did Walter Scott decide to run? Why didn't he just stay calm, and get out of the trap with his life? It's an un...derstandable impulse to have, especially when you hear the echo of alarm in his voice and his first halting attempt to get out of his car. It looks, at first glance, like a man haltingly sealing his own fate: what switch flipped in his mind to make him run? But there's a better, more important, and more gutwrenching question that begs to be asked, and which too many people are not asking: what flipped in Michael Slager's mind to draw his gun and shoot to kill a man stopped for a traffic violation? The answers to both those questions are not mysteries-- and their silent shadows under every tweet and think piece published since the death of Michael Brown is the ongoing unaddressed tragedy of America: everyone knows the answers to those questions, but they keep calm being asked. http://www.theguardian.com/…/police-dashcam-video-walter-sc… |
