U.S. officer charged in shooting of black man
WASHINGTON— A white police officer has been charged with murder after a video surfaced showing him fatally shooting an apparently unarmed black man in the back while he ran away.
The officer, Michael T. Slager, had initially said he feared for his life because the man took his stun gun in a scuffle after a traffic stop Saturday in North Charleston, S.C. A video, however, shows the officer firing eight times as the man fled.
The state charges were announced at a news conference Tuesday.
The shooting comes on the heels of high-profile incidents of police officers using lethal force in New York, Cleveland, Ferguson, Mo., and elsewhere around the U.S. The deaths have sparked a national debate over whether police are too quick to use force, particularly in cases involving black men. “When you’re wrong, you’re wrong,” Mayor Keith Summey said of the shooting during the news conference. “And if you make a bad decision — don’t care if you’re behind the shield or just a citizen on the street — you have to live by that decision.”
The shooting unfolded after Slager stopped a Mercedes-Benz with a broken taillight, according to police reports. The driver, Walter L. Scott, 50, ran away and Slager chased him into a grassy lot. He fired his Taser, an electronic stun gun, but it did not stop Scott, according to police reports. Moments later, Slager reported on his radio, “Shots fired and the subject is down. He took my Taser,” according to police reports. But the video, which was taken by a bystander, presents a different account.
The video begins in the vacant lot, apparently moments after Slager fired his Taser. Wires, which carry the electrical current from the stun gun, appear to be extending from his body as the two men tussle and Scott turns to run.
Something — it is not clear whether it is the stun gun — is either tossed or knocked to the ground behind the two men and Slager draws his gun, the video shows. When the officer fires, Scott appears to be five to six metres away and fleeing. He falls after the last of eight shots.
The officer then runs back toward where the initial scuffle occurred and picks something off the ground. Moments later, he drops an object near Scott’s body.