The jury will let the South Carolina cop killer go. Video evidence doesn't matter.

[Jim Lane]

45. I have some evidence that you're too pessimistic.

My evidence is that I fired up my lurker account at Free Republic to dip briefly into the extreme right's thoughts on the subject. Happily, even among those RWNJ's (some of whom think Fox News is too liberal), there seems to be a majority condemning the police officer.

A few samples:

"Officer’s life clearly not threatened. No doubt it was murder."

"Sharpton and friends are going to go nuts on this one.It appears that they would be justified,for once."

"We don’t side with scum who shoot people in the back when their own life isn’t being threatened. The cop is a real criminal in this situation. I say turn the cop loose in full uniform with badge and no gun in Ferguson." (Credit jsanders2001 for that creative suggestion, which I think many DUers could go along with.)

"I’m surprised they did not shoot the guy with the camera."

Now, I'm not saying that all the Freepers see reason on this. Some are muttering that the video may have been edited in some unspecified manner. One comments, "The jury is still out on this incident ......" but that draws a reply: "Must be a pretty stupid jury...this was clearly murder. Some people simply shouldn’t be cops."

These are people who, almost unanimously, were perfectly OK with the killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. Even they punch out when they see that video. They're not prospective jurors, but based on their reactions, I'm going to predict that this cop will do significant time, either on a jury verdict or a plea bargain.