Past vic: Cops did not listen
A MAN WHO once filed an excessive-force complaint against the South Carolina cop who killed Walter Scott says the shooting victim would still be alive had police taken his abuse claims seriously.
Mario Givens said he filed an excessive-force complaint with the North Charleston Police Department in 2013 against Officer Michael Slager. “It could have been prevented,” Givens, 33, of North Charleston, told The Associated Press. “If they had just listened to me and investigated what happened that night, this man might be alive today.”
Givens, who is black, says Slager showed up at his house before dawn one September morning and banged on the door.
Wearing only a T-shirt and boxer shorts, Givens said he opened the door and found the white cop on his porch.
“He said he wanted to come in, but didn’t say why,” Givens said. “He never said who he was looking for.”
Slager then burst into the house, threatening to use his Taser, Givens recalled.
Givens said he did not resist, but Slager zapped him anyway in the stomach with the stun gun. He said that as he called out for his mother, Slager dragged him outside and he was thrown to the ground by another officer who then cuffed him and put him in the back of the squad car.
He was not charged with a crime and was eventually released. Givens said he later learned the cops had shown up at his house looking for his brother Matthew, whose ex-girlfriend had reported him for an alleged home invasion.
The woman, Maleah Brown, says she witnessed officers attacking Givens.
“He looked nothing like the description I gave the officers,” Brown said of Givens. “He asked the officer why he was at the house. He did it nicely. The police officer said he wanted him to step outside. Then he asked, ‘Why? Why do you want me to step outside?’ Then the officer barged inside and grabbed him.”
Brown says the officers ignored her yelling that they had the wrong man. She said Slager was “cocky” and wouldn’t say why he used his Taser.
Givens says he filed a complaint at police headquarters the next day. Slager was exonerated a few weeks later.
“They never told me how they reached the conclusion. Never,” Givens said. “They never contacted anyone from that night. No one from the neighborhood.”
In the report Slager filed with another officer, he said he feared Givens had a weapon, and he was worried about the man fleeing.
Slager claimed he “feared for his life” when he fatally shot Scott on Saturday — an account that was contradicted by the release of a cell-phone video that showed the officer firing four shots into the back of the fleeing victim.
Scott’s brother, Anthony, 52, told the Daily News that Givens’ account left him even more anguished.
“It’s a tragedy,” he said. “If they would have listened to that young man, my brother would still be alive
today.”