| Online: | |
| Visits: | |
| Stories: |
| Story Views | |
| Now: | |
| Last Hour: | |
| Last 24 Hours: | |
| Total: | |
Sharpton Visits South Carolina; Will Violence Follow?
Like clockwork, Al Sharpton, race-hustler extraordinaire, is positioning himself as an “adviser” to the family of Walter Scott, the black man fatally shot from behind on April 4 by a white police officer in North Charleston, S.C., after Scott resisted arrest. The shooting was captured on cell phone video by a passing motorist. On Sunday, Rev. Sharpton spoke at a local church, praising officials for firing and prosecuting the cop, Michael Slager, for first-degree murder. He stated: “This is not about black and white. It’s about right and wrong.” He added: “I didn't come to start trouble. I come to help stop trouble.” Given his history of demagoguery, North Charleston officials should ignore him. For this case, like all his others, is about black and white. And Sharpton is trouble.
National Legal and Policy Center many times has dissected the Reverend Al Sharpton. For three decades, the New York-based black civil rights leader, who last October celebrated his 60th birthday, has been a national figure. And the nation has been the worse for it. His specialty is justice for blacks who supposedly cannot obtain it on their own. On a practical level, his campaigns have operated on an unspoken rule: Blacks deserve a presumption of innocence; whites deserve a presumption of guilt. Since the mid-80s, beginning with his attempt to railroad “subway vigilante” Bernhard Goetz into prison, he has employed his considerable skills as a preacher to whip up resentment among followers, grossly distorting facts and context in order to secure an outcome in which blacks gain at the expense of whites. More than once, he has used character assassination and incitement to riot during his campaigns. On occasion, the consequences have been lethal, as in Brooklyn (1991) and Harlem (1995). And while the initial wave of rioting in Ferguson, Missouri last August predated Sharpton’s extended visit, his repeated calls for the prosecution of Officer Darren Wilson helped provide a rationalization for more destructive rioting months later following the St. Louis County grand jury announcement not to indict.
My new book, “Sharpton: A Demagogue’s Rise,” published by National Legal and Policy Center, documents Al Sharpton’s lengthy and reprehensible career. The book notes more than once that his newfound “pragmatic” reputation is the result of an image makeover, not a moral self-reappraisal. The turning point was his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination during 2003-04. His political stock grew further with the election of Barack Obama as president in 2008, where he since has been a shadow cabinet member on racial issues. Sharpton’s star grew brighter in the summer of 2011, when he became a full-time six o’clock news anchorman for MSNBC. And all the while, he has built the New York-based National Action Network into a major player in the nonprofit world; in recent years, the organization has generated more than $4 million in annual revenues. While not as inflammatory or confrontational as he was in the Eighties and Nineties, he doesn't have to be. He knows how to play the power game. He has been able to achieve far more for himself and his constituents by cultivating close relationships with leading figures in politics, business, labor, philanthropy and the clergy than would have simply by remaining a loud, local street preacher in New York City.
The current crisis in North Charleston was tailor-made for Al Sharpton. Indeed, given his current gray eminence status in civil rights activism, it would be somewhat remarkable if he didn’t inject himself into the situation. Exploiting racial tension, all the while appealing for “calm” and “healing,” is his style. To understand why his entry into the controversy would be unwelcome, it is necessary to summarize the sequence of reported events (accounts differ) that has transformed this heavily black South Carolina city of about 100,000 people into a political tinderbox.
Two weeks ago on April 4 at about 9:30 A.M., a white police officer, Michael Slager, 33, a five-year veteran of the North Charleston police, was traveling in his cruiser when he noticed a moving 1991 Mercedes vehicle with a broken brake light. Two people were inside the Mercedes. Slager pulled over the driver, got out of his own car, and walked toward the Mercedes. Having reached the driver’s side front window, he asked the driver for his driver’s operating license and vehicle registration. It was a reasonable request. This was not petty harassment. A broken tail light is a safety hazard. The black driver, Walter Scott, age 50, responded that he did not have a license or a registration because he had just bought, or was in the process of buying, the car from a neighbor and was headed toward an auto parts store. The mounted dashboard camera of Slager’s car was recording this conversation.
Following this brief exchange, Officer Slager walked back to his car, in all likelihood to perform a background check. Suddenly, the situation changed. Scott opened his own door and got out, taking off on foot. Slager, observing this, got out of his car and gave pursuit. A block or two later, fully out of police dashboard camera view, he caught up with the suspect on an empty lot. Rather than submit to an arrest, Scott assaulted the officer. The pair struggled at least once and possibly twice. About three minutes had elapsed between Slager’s initial police radio call, indicating a routine traffic stop, and a second call, indicating hot pursuit of a suspect, a “black male, green shirt, blue plants.” The police dispatcher after that second call alerted other police units to the problem. Several officers called in to indicate they were headed toward the scene. About a minute later, Slager could be heard yelling, “Lie on the ground.” About 50 seconds after that, Slager radioed the dispatcher: “Shots fired. Subject is down. He grabbed my Taser.” Scott fell to the ground after the eighth shot. Slager at that point walked over to handcuff a prone, face-down Scott. Police Officer Clarence Habersham arrived at the scene shortly thereafter and notified the dispatcher: “Everyone is 10-4, except for the suspect…Gunshot wound, it looks like, to the chest, to the right side. Unresponsive…Another gunshot wound to the buttocks.” An ambulance arrived about seven minutes after the shooting. Medics declared Scott dead at the scene.
At the time Officer Michael Slager had caught up with Walter Scott, unbeknownst to either, a 23-year-old pedestrian named Feidin Santana was filming the confrontation. A Dominican immigrant, Santana had been walking to work at a local barbershop when he observed the incident, took out his cell phone, and activated the camera unit. The footage reveals that Slager fired off eight rounds at Scott, who was about 15 to 20 feet in front of him. The gunshots hit Scott five times – three times in the back, once in the buttocks and once in the ear.
Here was a news scoop to die for. Feidin Santana asked one of his Facebook friends if they knew anyone from the Scott family and if they introduce him to the family. He found such a person. They met with the Scott family on Sunday, April 5. After the private showing, Santana turned the video over to state investigators the next day, who in turn released the footage to the public the following day. In a Thursday, April 9 interview with Matt Lauer on NBC’s “The Today Show,” Santana asserted that Scott “never grabbed the Taser from the police.” The video shows Slager approaching Scott, lying on the ground, instructing him to place his hands behind his back. Slager then could be seen handcuffing Scott, leaving him face down, and rushing back to the area where the scuffle had ensued. He appeared to be picking something up off the ground and then dropping an object near Scott’s body. Another officer on the scene could be seen putting on latex gloves appearing to examine Scott.
Anti-racist activists and their allies now had a “gotcha” moment. This footage, and the eyewitness statement by Santana, could serve as proof not only of the guilt of one white police officer, but of white cops across the U.S. Not only was this murder, activists reasoned, but by implication, so were the highly-publicized deaths last year of the “unarmed” Michael Brown (in Ferguson, Mo.) and Eric Garner (in Staten Island, New York City). That there were no indictments in those particular cases, in their minds, must have been due to a racist political culture.
The City of North Charleston, fearing demonstrations and riots of the sort that rocked Ferguson, raced to exercise damage control. The police department, directed by Chief Eddie Driggers, arrested Officer Slager for first-degree murder and held him without bail. The department also fired him. Mayor R. Keith Summey ordered an additional 150 body cameras, on top of those already ordered, to ensure that every police officer had one. The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) announced it would investigate the case. On the federal level, the FBI, the U.S.
Source: http://nlpc.org/stories/2015/04/16/sharpton-visits-south-carolina-will-violence-follow
