The picture in the link attached to this blog post speaks volumes about modern life.

“The Whole World is Watching.”

So says the crude sign accompanying a New York Times editorial commenting on the shooting death of Walter Scott by former North Charleston, S.C., police officer Michael Slager.

This tragedy is going to stay with us for a long while.

Scott was black. Slager is white. Scott was running away from Slager when the officer fired eight rounds from his revolver, hitting Scott in the back. Scott was unarmed and he apparently died where he fell.

Slager has been charged with murder and was fired from his job.

And through it all, a young man with a camera in his smart phone captured it for the world to see.

There can be no way in the world that Slager will lie his way out of this one. He said something immediately afterward about fearing for his life. He feared an unarmed man who was running away from him? Yep. That’s what he said.

The Times commented: “The case underscores two problems that have become increasingly clear since the civic discord that erupted last year after the police killed black citizens in New York, Cleveland and Ferguson, Mo. The first, most pressing problem is that poorly trained and poorly supervised officers often use deadly force unnecessarily, particularly against minority citizens. The second is that the police get away with unjustly maiming or killing people by lying about the circumstances that prompted them to use force.”

There ought to be some serious heart-to-heart talks in police squad rooms all across the nation in the days and weeks to come about this incident.

The world is watching our police officers. Every moment of every day they’re on the job.

The latest video of a clear police atrocity needs to be part of police departments’ training regimen.