It’s Very Hard to Punish Cops, Even in Court

On April 7, prosecutors in North Charleston, S.C., filed murder charges against a white police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black man in the back after he fled during a traffic stop. The officer, Michael Slager, has been dismissed from his job and is being held without bond at the Charleston County Detention Center. Politicians in the city, which is 47 percent black, have said they believe Slager must be held accountable. “When you’re wrong, you’re wrong,” North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey said at a press conference. “Don’t care if you’re behind the shield or just a citizen on the street.”

Protests erupted across the U.S. last year after juries in St. Louis and New York decided not to indict white policemen involved in the deaths of unarmed black men. In their wake, prosecutors around the country have moved to put law enforcement officers on trial rather than let cases be handled internally by police and sheriff’s departments. Prosecutors in Tulsa filed manslaughter charges on April 13 against a 73-year-old reserve deputy sheriff who apparently mistook his gun for a Taser and shot and killed an unarmed man.