Not again... caught on film, moment US cop shoots an unarmed black man dead
FOOTAGE of a white policeman shooting dead a fleeing, unarmed black man in the back caused outrage across the US yesterday.
Police chiefs in South Carolina initially claimed Patrolman Michael Slager had feared for his life after Walter Scott tried to use the officer’s Taser gun against him.
However, a video filmed by a passer-by on his phone suggested a radically different story that resulted in Slager being sacked and charged with murder.
It showed a tussle between the pair on waste ground during which an object – believed to be the Taser – fell to the ground. Wires can be seen extending from Mr Scott’s body, suggesting the officer had tried to stun him.
Mr Scott, 50, who had been stopped on Saturday morning over a broken rear light on his Mercedes in North Charleston, then turned and ran away.
The policeman drew his pistol and fired eight times, reportedly hitting Mr Scott four times in the back and once in the ear when he was about 20ft away.
As Mr Scott fell to the ground, the video shows Slager approaching his motionless body and shouting: ‘Put your hands behind your back.’
He handcuffed Mr Scott and walked away as another officer arrived, pulled on surgical gloves and knelt down beside him. Slager, 33, can be seen jogging back
‘It just tore my heart to pieces’
to the fallen object, which he picked up and dropped near Mr Scott’s body.
Moments after the shooting, he reported on his radio: ‘Shots fired and the subject is down. He took my Taser.’
He called in again two minutes later, saying: ‘Need someone to come behind pawn shop with a kit. Gunshot wounds to chest, to the right thigh, not responsive.’
Mr Scott, who served in the US Coast Guard for two years, was pronounced dead at the scene.
His father, Walter Scott Sr, said yesterday that without the video, the truth would ‘never have come to light’.
He added: ‘They would have swept it under the rug, like they did with so many others. The way [Slager] was shooting that gun, it looked like he was trying to kill a deer.’
Judy Scott, the victim’s mother, said the video was ‘the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen’, adding: ‘To see my son running defensively and being shot – it just tore my heart to pieces. I pray that this never happens to another person. This has got to stop.’ Under American law, the police should shoot a fleeing suspect only if he poses a serious threat to an officer or to others.
Legal experts have noted that the anonymously filmed video foot- age, which was handed to Mr Scott’s family, did not show the entire encounter.
As in Ferguson, Missouri, where the fatal shooting of a black teenager by a policeman last year led to widespread riots, North Charles- ton’s population is almost 50 per cent black and its police force overwhelmingly white.
With anger growing over Saturday’s shooting, scores of people gathered outside City Hall in North Charleston, led by Black Lives Mat- ter, a group that came to prominence after the death of Michael Brown, 18, in Ferguson. ‘Eight shots in the back!’ organiser Muhiydin D’Baha shouted, with the crowd yelling ‘In the back!’ in response.
Mr Scott, a father- of-four, may have run from the officer because he was behind on child- support payments, said his family’s lawyer.
He had been arrested about ten times in the past, largely over childsupport payments, although he was convicted in 1991 of possessing a bludgeon.
‘He has four children; he doesn’t have some type of big violent past or arrest record,’ said Chris Stewart, a lawyer for the family.
Keith Summey, the mayor of North Charleston, described the shooting as a ‘bad decision’, adding: ‘When you’re wrong, you’re wrong.’
A lawyer for Slager said the officer ‘believes he followed all the proper procedures’. Under South Carolina law, he could face the death penalty if convicted.
The FBI and the US justice department’s civil rights division have opened investigations.