As communities around the nation protest decisions not to charge officers who have injured or killed suspects, South Carolina prosecutors have obtained indictments against three white officers for on-duty shootings of unarmed black men in the past four months.
It might seem unusual that officers would face charges in a law-and-order state like South Carolina. But a former prosecutor with some high-profile cases under his belt said officials are acutely aware that people think there is a good ol' boy network in the state and are extra careful to give cases involving police officers the highest level of scrutiny.
"As prosecutors, you are well aware of that stereotype and so you go that extra mile to make sure justice is done," said state Rep. Tommy Pope, who served 13 years as a chief prosecutor and perhaps is best known for his prosecution of Susan Smith, who was convicted of drowning her two sons in a lake.
It took nearly four years for a grand jury to hand down a murder indictment in the latest South Carolina shooting. A white former police chief and at the time the only officer in the small town of Eutawville (YOO'-tah-vihl) was charged Wednesday in the 2011 shooting death of an unarmed black man after an argument, a case that instantly drew comparisons to the Ferguson, Missouri, shooting and the chokehold death in New York.
Wow who thought that South Carolina would break from the pack?
Or rather not so much breaking from the pack, but seeing the writing on the walls.
It is always hard to see the silver lining when such incredible miscarriages of justice occur, but if we start to see an increase cops being indicted for using excess force or deadly force, especially when dealing with black people, then perhaps the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown will not have been in vain.
