Trooper says he couldn't avoid suspect with car

Trooper says he couldn't avoid suspect with car
He testifies the crash was an accident and he regretted bragging about it.

GREENVILLE, S.C. - A South Carolina state trooper accused of deliberately running down a suspect with his cruiser said Wednesday the crash was "an unavoidable accident" and that he regretted bragging about it afterward.
"It's a collision that I'm sorry took place," Lance Cpl. Steven Garren said on the second day of his federal trial.
Garren is charged with using unreasonable force and depriving suspect Marvin Grant of his civil rights. Garren is white; Grant is black. A conviction could bring Garren up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
The trial hinges on a key video of the collision that shows Grant sprinting from the patrol car, then being hit and flipping over the hood. On the recording, Garren says to a deputy: "Yeah, I hit him. I was trying to hit him."
Garren said his statements embarrassed himself, his family and his department.
"The statement itself is not true. But I did say the statement," he said. "It's just a dumb, stupid statement."
The officer also said Grant ran in front of the cruiser "probably in the blink of an eye."
"It was an unavoidable accident," he said.
Earlier in the day, federal prosecutors wrapped up their case with a frame-by-frame analysis of the video.
Steered car into suspect's path?A witness for the prosecution said Garren steered his patrol car twice into Grant's path. Crash reconstruction expert Geoffrey Germane said when Grant suddenly cut to the right in front of the cruiser, Garren steered the car toward the suspect a second time and hit him.
Garren's attorneys argued there were assumptions and flaws in the Germane's report and have said the trooper tried to avoid hitting Grant.
The defense is expected to focus on whether the trooper had enough time to react to Grant's sudden turn.
Garren's trial is the first of two federal civil rights cases to come from a spate of police videos that showed questionable tactics by South Carolina troopers. The videos and how supervisors treated the officers on them brought the ousters of the heads of the Highway Patrol and Department of Public Safety earlier this year.
Garren was initially suspended for three days. He has been suspended since his federal indictment in June.
The videos have drawn scrutiny from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the state's Legislative Black Caucus, which helped bring the videos to the public's attention.

Did you think the trooper act was intentional or actually a mistake? Was this a racist act? Why is that few cases are known or even noticed when it comes to the people civil rights against any type of police authority?Do you think the trooper punishment was reasonable? Do you think there is favor when it comes to governments acts and when it comes to citizens acts its something different?Why?