South Carolina Officer Charged with Murder for Black Man's Death

A white South Carolina police officer has been charged with murder after video emerged of him shooting a black man running away from him. State investigators arrested North Charleston police officer Michael Slager on Tuesday after viewing the mobile phone video of the shooting.

The officer, Michael T. Slager, 33, said he had feared for his life because the man had taken hisstun gun in a scuffle after a traffic stop on Saturday. A video, however, shows the officer firing eight times as the man, Walter L. Scott, 50, fled. 

The North Charleston mayor announced the state charges at a news conference Tuesday evening. Authorities say victim Walter Lamer Scott was shot after the officer had already targeted him with a stun gun. The US Department of Justice is set to launch an investigation.

"When you're wrong, you're wrong," North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey said, announcing the arrest. "When you make a bad decision, I don't care if you're behind the shield or a citizen on the street, you have to live with that decision."

The incident on Saturday began after Scott's car was stopped for having a broken rear light, local media reported.

Mr. Scott had been arrested about 10 times, mostly for failing to pay child support or show up for court hearings, according to The Post and Courier newspaper of Charleston. He was arrested in 1987 on an assault and battery charge and convicted in 1991 of possession of a bludgeon, the newspaper reported. Mr. Scott’s brother, Anthony, said he believed Mr. Scott had fled from the police on Saturday because he owed child support.

 “He has four children; he doesn't have some type of big violent past or arrest record,” said Chris Stewart, a lawyer for Mr. Scott’s family. “He had a job; he was engaged. He had back child support and didn't want to go to jail for back child support.”

Mr. Stewart said the coroner had told him that Mr. Scott was struck five times — three times in the back, once in the upper buttocks and once in the ear — with at least one bullet entering his heart. It is not clear whether Mr. Scott died immediately. (The coroner’s office declined to make the report available to The Times.

In January, prosecutors in Albuquerque charged two police officers with murder for shooting a homeless man in a confrontation that was captured by an officer’s body camera. Federal prosecutors are investigating the death of Eric Garner, who died last year in Staten Island after a police officer put him in a chokehold, an episode that a bystander captured on video. A video taken in Cleveland shows the police shooting a 12-year-old boy, Tamir Rice, who was carrying a fake gun in a park. A White House policing panel recommended that police departments put more video cameras on their officers.

source: bbc