December 14, 2016 The Skanner Page 9
News
Black Community Shocked by Michael Slager Mistrial
By Lauren Victoria
Burke
NNPA Newswire
Contributor
L
ast week, the na-
tion was shocked to
learn that the jury
for the trial of Mi-
chael Slager, the North
Charleston police officer
who shot and killed an
unarmed Black motorist
as he jogged away from a
traffic stop in 2015, could
not agree on a murder
or manslaughter convic-
tion or any punishment
for the officer.
“I don’t have anything
new to say,” tweeted De-
ray Mckesson, a promi-
nent activist associated
with the Black Lives Mat-
“
Ferguson, Missouri, was
not the only person who
expressed disbelief on
Twitter.
Ta-Nehisi Coates, the
author of “Between the
World and Me” and a
national
correspon-
dent for “The Atlantic,”
commented about the
Charleston County chief
prosecutor’s
opening
statement, where she “ac-
knowledged from the be-
ginning of the trial that
she thought Mr. Scott had
contributed to his own
death by running away,”
according to “The New
York Times.”
“Re:
Walter
Scott.
When DA sounds like
the defense, can’t really
be surprised by a mis-
‘It’s not over. [God] will get
his just reward’
ter movement. “I mean,
we have a video of an ex-
ecution and planting evi-
dence and even that’s not
enough.”
After a brief struggle
off-camera, a passerby
recorded Slager, shoot-
ing Walter Scott in the
back from nearly 20
feet away. Then Slager
walked back to where
the initial struggle took
place and picked up
what looked like a Taser.
Slager then returned to
Scott’s body and dropped
the Taser, contradicting
his initial police report.
Mckesson, who gained
national attention in
2014 for his social media
presence and citizen re-
porting in the aftermath
of the shooting death of
Michael Brown, an un-
armed Black teenager in
trial. This is incredible,”
Coates tweeted.
During an interview
last week on the “Today”
show, Dorsey Montgom-
ery II, the jury foreman
from the Slager trial, said
that several jurors had
doubts about convicting
the former police officer.
“Initially it was going
to be murder,” Montgom-
ery said. Then jurors
requested additional in-
formation about the ev-
idence presented in the
case and about the pos-
sible charges and “the
things that were present-
ed to us by the judged, we
had come to find out he
didn’t do anything mali-
cious.”
Since the 2014 murder
of Eric Garner in Stat-
en Island, N.Y, dozens
of videos have surfaced
showing violent, some-
times fatal, interactions
between police and Black
men and women. The
ease of use of video tech-
nology in the informa-
tion age has brought into
public view a problem
that has for decades been
ignored and dismissed
by mainstream media
and White society at
large: police brutality in
the Black community.
Despite the brutal vi-
sual evidence, the Amer-
ican police uniform has
consistently shielded of-
ficers who commit mur-
der from prosecution.
The case of Tamir Rice
in Cleveland, Ohio, Phi-
lando Castile in Falcon
Heights, Minn., and John
Crawford in Beaver-
creek, Ohio, are only a
few examples of police
shootings caught on cam-
era, where the officers in-
volved escaped murder
convictions.
The mistrial in the
Scott case comes on the
61st anniversary of the
Montgomery Bus Boy-
cott, which started on
December 5, 1955. The
boycott began four days
after Rosa Parks refused
to give up her seat to a
White man on a Mont-
gomery bus. For doing
so, she was arrested and
fined. The boycott lasted
381 days and a decision
in a case that went be-
fore the United States
Supreme Court forced
Montgomery to inte-
grate it’s public bus sys-
tem.
Months before the
Montgomery Bus Boy-
cott in late August 1955,
Emmett Till was mur-
Americans Spend Almost $10,000
Each Year on Health Insurance
Experts attribute spike to chronically ill people
seeking treatment for the first time in years
Judy Scott, center, Walter Scott’s mother, is comforted by her son Rodney Scott, as the family attorneys,
Chris Stewart, left, and Justin Bamberg, right, hold a press conference after the mistrial was declared for
the Michael Slager trial Dec. 5 in Charleston, S.C.
dered in Money, Missis-
sippi at the age of 14. Till
was beaten, tortured and
mutilated by two White
men, Roy Bryant and J.W.
Milam. Both men were
acquitted in Till’s mur-
der by an all-White jury
and some would suggest
that police officers are
given the same prefer-
ential treatment by the
criminal justice system
today. Civil rights lead-
ers have suggested that
it will take the same type
of sustained economic
pressure of the Mont-
gomery Bus Boycott to
force real reform in the
criminal justice system.
During a press confer-
ence following the an-
nouncement of the mis-
trial, Judy Scott, Walter
Scott’s mother said that,
“justice will be served,
because the God that I
serve is able. Injustice
will not prevail.”
Scott continued: “It’s
not over. [God] will get
his just reward.”
We honor the many
accomplishments of
African Americans.
It is our primary goal as a labor union to better the lives of all people working
in the building trades through advocacy, civil demonstration, and the long-held
belief that workers deserve a “family wage” - fair pay for an honest day’s work.
A family wage, and the benefits that go with it, not only strengthens families, but also
allows our communities to become stronger, more cohesive, and more
responsive to their citizens’ needs.
Our family wage agenda reflects our commitment to people working in the building
trades, and to workers everywhere. In this small way, we are doing our part to help
people achieve the American Dream. This dream that workers can hold dear
regardless of race, color, national origin, gender, creed, or religious beliefs.
By Stacy M. Brown (NNPA Newswire
Contributor
H
Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters
Representing more than 5,000 construction workers in Oregon State.
Do you want to know more about becoming a Union carpenter?
Go to www.NWCarpenters.org
IMAGE BY 401(K) 2012 VIA FLICKR
ealth care spending in the Unit-
ed States grew at a rate of 5.8
percent last year and reached
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Office of the Actuary at the Centers
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in Baltimore.
One of the factors driving the spend-
ing is the 136.3 million Americans
who visited the emergency room last
year, officials at the Centers for Dis-
ease Control and Prevention said.
Further, Latinos are twice as likely
as the general population to use the
emergency room for non-emergen-
cy treatment and Latinos and Afri-
can-Americans are nearly twice as
AP PHOTO/MIC SMITH
Writers, activists reflect on Sputh Carolina jury’s failure to convict the man who shot Walter Scott
See INSURANCE on page 11 Health spending in America has reached $3.2 trillion.
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