In this edition of The Illipsis, Jay Smooth’s thoughts on Jay-Z’s streaming music service Tidal are interrupted by the latest national tragedy: 50 year old African American father Walter L. Scott was shot in the back eight times while fleeing a police officer after a traffic stop went horribly wrong.

“We have thousands of police officers entrusted with other people’s lives every day, but when the worst case scenario hits of them abusing that power, we do not have a system in place that ensures we will know what happened. In fact, when the worst case scenario hits of an officer abusing their power, that’s precisely when it’s most likely we will have to take that officers word for what happened unless one of us just happens to be there recording.”