MOSCOW (Sputnik) — US police officers are trained to justify the use of force, which in practice leads to deaths, Retired Chief Deputy US Marshal Matthew Fogg said in an interview with RT Thursday.
"The training says that, whenever you use deadly force, you have to be able to justify it. So to justify it, you have to say either I feared for the safety of myself or the safety of the public, and that this person was an extreme danger to either party."
On Tuesday, South Carolina white officer Michael Slager, aged 33, was charged with the murder of unarmed 50-year-old black Walter Scott, whom he shot eight times in the back on April 4. US Senator Tim Scott said that the killing of Scott was "unnecessary and avoidable."
Among notable recent cases are the killings of unarmed Eric Garner, who died after being put in a chokehold by a police officer in New York City, and Michael Brown, an unarmed teenager who was shot to death in Ferguson, Missouri.
