BY LUCY CAULKETT
Video footage in which shots of a black man being shot by police in February are heard was released yesterday. The footage shows shell cases flying as a police officer shot 25-year-old Lavall Hall dead just before the shooting, an officer can be heard shouting: “Get on the fucking ground or you’re dead.” Five shots followed, two of which killed the man. The defense given my Miami Gardens police had been that Hull had attacked officers with a broom stick
Hall can be seen walking and at other times running around in the suburb with broom handle in his possession.
His attorney said he had been running away from police at one point, although he appears to chase them at another.
Why he was chasing a police officer is unclear, though makes no sense in a country where police killings of black men is rife. Hall suffered from schizophrenia so may not have been of sound mind and may have alarmed the officer to pull the trigger. His condition of schizophrenia
”Hall was unable to communicate, clearly did not understand what was going on and was visibly scared”, the civil rights suit states. If the force were fully aware of Hull’s condition and communicated this information to the officer dealing with him, then he should be charged with murder. If on the other hand, the department withheld this information from the officer at the scene, then the department should be held liable for recklessness that led to murder, since the police officer at the scene would have been justified to shoot if a man of sound mind is charging towards him with full knowledge that he is a police officer on duty.
Hall’s mother must have a mind swamped with feelings of both misery and guilt for calling the police on her son although even in hindsight, she probably had no choice but to alert the police. However, her claim of racial attack is not as concrete as Walter Scott shot dead by an evil officer who will spend the rest of his days in jail for the needless killing of a black man. His family has suggested that Scott may have tried to run from the officer before he was shot because he owed child support and did not want to go back to jail. The dead man’s mother called police ‘murderers’ at a press conference in America yesterday. Her case is unfortunately hard to proof.
Court records reveal that Scott had had been jailed three times for failure to pay child support.
In late 2008, Scot was sent to the Charleston County Detention Centre for six months for contempt of court for failing to pay about $6,800 in back child support.
In 2011, he spent a night in jail when he was $7,500 behind in his child support payments.
And in 2012, he spent a night in jail when he again defaulted on his payments by $3,500
Scott’s record also showed that he had received several traffic tickets.
Scott had four children. It is unclear why the courts did not take into account his schizophrenia condition, but only they can answer that question. Hopefully the fact this police officer will be charged for a murder he would most certainly had escaped without video evidence, is a brilliant thing. There have been many other victims of racial police brutality who have not been so lucky.
