The Michael Slager shooting of Walter Scott in South Carolina brings to light many issues related to discretion. Police officers are given discretion in a number of ways. First, they have discretion on who they pull over and who they do not. While it might seem logical that an officer should respond every time he sees a violation, this is not practical, especially when it comes to minor infractions or traffic issues. Because there are only a finite number of police officers, they have to pick and choose their spots for enforcement.

This means that sometimes police officers will choose to let things go, deciding that despite a person violating the law, that violation is not causing an immediate danger to the public. In this case, Michael Slager used his discretion to decide to pull over Walter Scott. This set the entire chain in motion and brought about the encounter that cost Scott his life.

In addition, police officers have discretion when it comes to their perception of danger. The key term is “reasonable force” necessary to protect the officer. This means that if the officer has a reasonable belief that his life is in danger, he can respond with deadly force. He gets to make this determination, and although there is supposed to be a legal “reasonableness” standard that will determine whether his behavior was proper or not, juries rarely find that officers acted unreasonably. Ultimately Slager made a decision, for one reason or another, that Scott was a danger to him or others.

This makes little sense when one reviews it objectively. Scott was running away and he was unarmed. Slager had the discretion to pull the trigger if he felt Scott posed a danger to him or an immediate danger to the public, but the presence of discretion also allows officers to justify their behavior after the fact. Officers can pull the trigger because they feel angry or disrespected, as was the case with Slager, and then claim they were acting reasonably within the bounds of their granted discretion.