A veteran NYPD officer told Business Insider that the North Charleston police officer shown on video fatally shooting an unarmed black man who was running away is in serious hot water.
The decorated cop, who has investigated several high-profile cases during two decades serving with the nation's largest police department, said the man, Walter Scott, posed no threat to Michael Slager, who was fired and charged with murder over the shooting.
Slager "is in trouble; he should have not shot the guy," the high-ranking officer said. "The guy was running away. He should not have shot the guy. You can't do that."
"He wasn't" a threat, the cop continued. "The guy was running away. You can't shoot a fleeing suspect unless that guy is firing back at you. If he's running away, chase his fat a-- or call for backup. You don't shoot the guy."
(Vimeo)
That said, the officer we spoke with explained the train of thought that leads to justified shootings.
"When it all comes down to using deadly force, it's a decision you make in seconds," he said. "You don't have time to think about it, the moral repercussions."
Experts who spoke with The New York Times held the same opinion, noting that shooting fleeing suspects was acceptable only in a narrow set of cases, such as when suspects were about to commit a dangerous felony.
"Whatever happened, this suspect was running away," Stephen A. Saltzburg, a professor at the George Washington University Law School in Washington and a former deputy assistant attorney general in the criminal division of the Justice Department, told The Times.
"The suspect was trying to avoid the officer," he continued. "It is highly doubtful that the officer could legitimately claim that he thought that the suspect posed a danger to the life or the serious health of anybody else in the community."
A police officer who spoke with The Times called the footage "horrendous."
When asked about the recent fatal Miami Gardens shooting of Lavall Hall, a mentally disturbed man, the NYPD cop who spoke with Business Insider said each situation was different. The case of Hall has also come under close scrutiny this week after the release of a police dash-cam video showing an officer firing the fatal shots.
The police say Hall was repeatedly swinging a broomstick, which the officer we spoke with said could actually be considered a lethal weapon.
"It depends on if the broomstick is cracked, if it has sharp edges," the NYPD officer said. "Even a pencil can be a weapon. You can be standing there and somebody could just be holding a pencil and jam it into your neck or eye."
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