Up Next

Former North Charleston officer Michael Slager (center) is led into court for a bond hearing at the Charleston County Court House on Sept. 10, 2015, in Charleston, South Carolina. Slager is charged with the murder of Walter Scott. Slager shot Scott in the back when Scott ran away during a traffic stop on April 4, 2015. Photo by Grace Beahm-Pool/Getty Images, File
3 min read

Mistrial declared in case of Walter Scott’s killer

Jury unable to reach unanimous decision to convict Michael Slager in North Charleston

Clinton Yates @clintonyates
Topics:
All Day Black Lives Matter Michael Slager Walter Scott

Up Next From Culture

    5:15 PMWhen police officer Michael Slager pulls up in his cruiser, Everlast is playing so loud on 98 Rock that the dash cam can pick up every word of his 1998 pop country jam that tells the stories of three down-and-out characters who know what it’s like to have the blues. Now, after a judge declared a mistrial in his murder case, Slager really knows what it’s like to be white.

    Monday afternoon in North Charleston, South Carolina, the jury was unable to come to a unanimous decision about on a verdict in the killing of Walter Scott, a black man who was unarmed. This happened in April 2015 and at the time was one of the more clear-cut visuals we’d seen of an officer doing something that most people found atrocious. Because the system is stacked against nearly everyone who ends up on the business end of a police bullet, there was no reasonable expectation of a conviction. White fear trumps black lives, and this has been the case since the dawn of the nation.

    But, in this case, enough things had happened that might have led some to believe we’d see more than the usual. No. 1: Slager was actually fired from his job. No. 2: He was charged at all. No. 3: He was actually charged with murder, not some form of a manslaughter charge. Lastly, let’s not forget that the mayor and the police chief both indicated they had problems with Slager’s actions, a borderline stunner considering that most authorities will rarely take a stance on sensitive matters like these. Even within the intellectually fraught world of respectability politics, people felt bad for Scott versus, say, Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

    To review, Slager shot Scott in the back while he was running away. He then cuffed Scott. If it wasn’t for a random person filming this, we might have never seen any of this at all. Later, the officer was heard talking rather lightheartedly about the adrenaline that comes with shooting at a suspect, if you’re wondering.

    So, in short, one juror basically could not bring himself/herself to putting a white officer in jail for killing an unarmed black person. Literally, could not. Slager pleaded not guilty. He will surely be retried and also faces a federal case in this matter, but it’s an another obvious example of how inherent biases and institutional forces can sway even the minds of those who consider themselves the most righteous.

    Clinton Yates is a tastemaker at Andscape. He likes rap, rock, reggae, R&B and remixes — in that order.