Jay Smooth: How many Walter Scott-style shootings go unpunished because they’re not recorded?
In the video embedded below, radio host and commentator Jay Smooth discussed the shooting of Walter Scott -- the unarmed black man who was shot dead by a South Carolina police officer in a video that has since gone viral -- as well as talking about the celebrity-driven music streaming service Tidal.
Smooth began by quoting Jay-Z's press conference for Tidal's launch, saying, "Every great movement started out with a group of people being able to get together and really make a stand."
He said that he was in the middle of making a video about the streaming service when he saw the news video of Scott's death.
"And I gotta say, I just can't watch that and go back to making a video about Tidal," he explained. "I can't see that and then go back to watching people talk about movements and taking stands in reference to an Android app that keeps giving me errors when I try to sign on."
"Let's talk about this Walter Scott thing," he said, "about how this officer can so callously stand there and shoot this man in the back; how he can so casually proceed to walk over and then by all appearances plant the evidence that'll help him lie about what he just did."
He went on to lament "how we once again witness the twisted ritual of cops putting handcuffs on a dying man instead of kneeling down to try and save him, why do they never try to save them?"
"And most of all the question his family's lawyer asked last night about how this conversation would be going, would there be a conversation at all if we didn't have the video?" Smooth asked.
"How often does this happen across America without scrutiny or consequence because none of us regular citizens happen to catch it on video?" he went on.
Watch the video, embedded below:
[Hat-tip to Salon.com]