Police officer charged with murder in South Carolina after shooting unarmed man in the back. What do you think of cases like this?

CPT, the decisions made by the victim did not cause his death no more than a short skirt causes a rape. After you arrest a murderer do you tell the jury its the victim's poor choice that got him killed? ("If only the victim had not gone into the bar he would not have been shot by the angry drunk") Hell if only the victim had ran faster or zig-zagged more he would have been alive. Poor choice to run straight and be out of shape... (sarcasm)

Point is, the shooting officer made the decision to fire. The shooting officer is the *only* man responsible for the death of the victim.

Law enforcement officers are given great authority and have enormous powers. They are placed in positions of great trust, given the benefit of the doubt, and their word is held in higher regard than the people assumed to be innocent that they testify against. In exchange, LEOs are held to a higher standard with no tolerance for deviation and criminal conduct.

It is disheartening to hear a police officer blame the victim for the violence of a criminal wearing a badge.

The second officer conspired with the first officer [1] by not immediately calling BS when the shooter altered the crime scene, [2] failure to immediately report the crime scene alteration when supervisors arrived and [3] by reportedly falsifying his police report to help cover the shooter.

2LT Gibbs - The murdered victim was father who did not pay child support (a civil matter recently made into a criminal matter) and not a "felon". Even if he was a felon, the Supreme Court ruled long ago that police cannot shoot a fleeing that does not pose an immediate threat. The fleeing victim did *not* pose an immediate threat to anyone and his actions did not justify the illegal use of lethal force by the shooting officer.

You also apparently misunderstand the term militarization of law enforcement. The role of police officers has changed over the years. No longer are they "peace officers" keeping the peace, they are now "law enforcement officers" enforcing laws (no matter how bad the law, irrational the penalty, or disruptive to the peace). Some agencies are becoming more like occupying armies fighting a war on [insert title here] (drugs, crime, gangs, etc..). SWAT equipment and SWAT teams were once rarely seen and sparsely employed - only used for serious high risk situations. Now everybody has got a SWAT team, the Feds give free money/equip to support SWAT teams and the agency needs to employ the SWAT teams more frequently on low risk issues to justify the local expense and get more free money/equip from the feds.

Militarization of law enforcement is *not* about hiring veterans. It has more to do with changing the culture and mindset from keeping the peace and doing good for the community to that of a soldier fighting a war using, literally, tools designed for the battle field.

I stand corrected. Again. The only thing I can really hear well on the video is gunshots. The shirt's flapping are all I can really tell about the murder victim's appearance. Could he have whispered a threat or voiced a plan to harm others? I don't believe so, but could the officer have seen something he perceived as a threat in a pocket or waistband? The shooting and cover-up were obviously heinous as well as barbaric. Enhancing a department's professionalism with military grade surplus hardware seems reasonable, but better training must be a commander's priority to protect his officers and community.