Stay updated with breaking news from Me michael slager. Get real-time updates on events, politics, business, and more. Visit us for reliable news and exclusive interviews.
But i m always torn do the officers have a right to stop when a tail light is out? certainly. but as your other guests indicated, a lot of times it s a pretext for writing tickets, for meeting quotas for harassing people about other things. you ve got to keep that in mind that there s a quote, what you can do and there s quote, what really happens when it gets done. tom fuentes? that s true. it could be a pretext. you could have that. it s going to be important to see what officer slager s record is in terms of that what the department s record. i agree with all of that. but in this case all i have said is up until this point we don t see hostility, particularly racial hostility on the part of the officer. that comes later, he guns down mr. scott. we know that. but i m just saying up until now we don t see the evidence of that. you agree, john gaskin ....
Bright white light, right there. see that light? the left taillight? that means that lens is cracked and out. that s a violation. is that normally enough cause for a police officer to stop a vehicle, because their rear taillight is broken? maybe not now. but he s saying on both sides he s got problems. tell you what i made hundreds of these stops when i was a cop as a courtesy to tell the person you may not know this you know when your headlights aren t working right because you can t see in the dark but you may not know it sir, but your taillight is out, you should get it fixed as a courtesy. nowadays you shouldn t be doing courtesy stops anymore because they might turn ugly. the other reason sometimes we have heard this in other communities, i don t know about north charleston but we heard that sometimes the police are under orders they need the revenue for the community and they do these kinds of incidents to give somebody a ticket a fine to collect additional revenue. that ....
So i m just using that comparison to this. what this will boil down to as joey has said are the moments of the confrontation and just before this man is shot to death. the community activist is here with me in washington. you have had a chance to take a look at what led up to the incident. this is the dash cam video for viewers who may just be tuning in for the first time dash cam video of the police officer s vehicle, walter scott. he pulls over excuse me michael slager pulls over walter scott for a broken taillight. apparently there were three broken taillights in that vehicle. he questions him, there s no driver s license, no registration. he goes back to the vehicle, the third light was out as we hear him say. he goes back to his vehicle, then all of a sudden walter scott, who is now dead of course gets out of the vehicle. the police officer screams out get back in the vehicle. he gets back in the vehicle but a few seconds later, gets out and starts running away and the police ....
Was the excuse the reason the cop gave for pulling over walter scott s vehicle, do you see anything wrong with the way the police officer behaved at least according to this dash cam video before walter scott got out and as you see him right there running away? not based upon what we re seeing. obviously police officers have a job to do. if there are taillights out or brake lights out, if you re not in compliance with the vehicle and traffic law, that certainly gives the officer a basis to stop and pull over. so therefore you know what based upon that you could say the officer s doing their job. i think it s important to point out that the federal government investigating this they are going to do two things. number one, they are going to investigate the specifics of walter scott s death. was there in their investigation, they are going to look to determine, was there a willful deprivation of a civil right here. was it intentional, was it malicious. now, this doesn t show the video we ....
To say he automatically should never have done it and then go and hold in custody someone who wasn t driving the car and wasn t posing at that point any kind of a threat or any resistance that s a judgement call on the officer. i will agree it doesn t show any reason for what later happens in terms of the shooting. we heard from chris stewart and justin bamberg, they are looking for the passenger. they would like to talk to the passenger. they can t find the passenger to get a apparently it was a friend. here is more of the dash cam video as the police officer is following now this is on the road there in north charleston. the police officer, michael slager this is his dash kachl video, following the car of walter scott. you see he has the blinker. let s watch this video. ....