Video shows cop chasing fleeing driver
NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. — Dash cam video of a traffic stop provided the world with another piece of evidence Thursday in a fatal police shooting. It showed no indication of any physical or verbal threats before the driver bolts and the officer chases after him.
The video, released Thursday by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, shows what begins as a seemingly routine stop for a broken tail light. The officer, Michael Slager, approaches the used MercedesBenz driven by Walter Lamer Scott, and asks for licence and registration. There’s a brief exchange, and the officer returns to his cruiser.
Scott then takes off running. The officer chases after him, also leaving the dash camera’s view. The next moment was apparently not captured by any camera: The officer caught up with Scott and a possible struggle over his police-issued Taser ensued. A bystander noticed the confrontation and pushed record on his cellphone, capturing video that has outraged the nation: It shows Scott running away again, and Slager firing eight shots at his back.
There is almost nothing in Slager’s police personnel file to suggest that his bosses considered him a rogue officer capable of murdering a man during a traffic stop. In the community he served, however, people say this reflects what’s wrong with policing today: Officers nearly always get the last word when citizens complain.
“We’ve had through the years numerous similar complaints, and they all seem to be taken lightly and dismissed without any obvious investigation,” said Rev. Joseph Darby, vice-president of the Charleston branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
The mostly black neighbourhood where Slager fired eight shots at the back of Walter Lamer Scott on Saturday is far from unique, said Melvin Tucker, a former FBI agent and police chief in four southern cities who often testifies in police misconduct cases.
Nationwide, training that pushes pre-emptive action, military experience that creates a war zone mindset, and a legal system favouring police in misconduct cases all lead to scenarios where officers see the people they serve as enemies, he said.
“It’s not just training. It’s not just unreasonable fear. It’s not just the warrior mentality. It’s not just court decisions that almost encourage the use of it. It is not just race,” Tucker said. “It is all of that.”
Both Slager, 33, and Scott, 55, were U.S. Coast Guard veterans. Slager had the dismissed excessive force complaint and Scott had been jailed repeatedly for failing to pay child support, but neither man had a record of violence. Slager consistently earned positive reviews in his five years with the North Charleston Police.
Slager’s new attorney, Andy Savage, said Thursday that he’s conducting his own investigation, and that it’s “far too early for us to be saying what we think.” Slager’s first attorney said he followed all proper procedures before using deadly force, but swiftly dropped him after the dead man’s family released a bystander’s video of the shooting.
The officer, whose wife is eight months pregnant, is being held without bond pending an Aug. 21 hearing on a charge of murder that could put him in prison for 30 years to life if convicted.
As a steady crowd left flowers, stuffed animals, notes and protest signs Thursday in the empty lot where Scott was gunned down, many said police in South Carolina’s third-largest city routinely dismiss complaints of petty brutality and harassment, even when eyewitnesses can attest to police misbehaviour. The result, they say, is that officers are regarded with a mixture of distrust and fear.
Slager’s file includes a single excessive use-of-force complaint, from 2013: A man said Slager used his stun gun against him without reason. But Slager was exonerated and the case closed, even though witnesses said investigators never followed up with them.