Apr 9, 2015 Posted by AGA Editor

South Carolina Officer Is Charged With Murder of Walter Scott

A police officer in North Charleston, S.C., was charged with murder after a video surfaced showing him shooting in the back and killing an apparently unarmed man while the man ran away.

Nothing has done more to fuel the national debate over police tactics than the dramatic, sometimes grisly videos: A man gasping “I can’t breathe” through a police chokehold on Staten Island, a 12-year-old boy shot dead in a park in Cleveland. And now, perhaps the starkest video yet, showing a South Carolina police officer shooting a fleeing man in the back.

The officer, Michael T. Slager, 33, said he had feared for his life because the man had taken his stun 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, fled.

The officer’s official report stated the man took his stun gun and the officer feared for his life. The video shows that was not the case. In fact, it paints a very different picture. Police reports also say that officers performed CPR and delivered first aid to Mr. Scott. The video shows that for several minutes after the shooting, Mr. Scott remained face down with his hands cuffed behind his back. A second officer arrives, puts on blue medical gloves and attends to Mr. Scott, but is not shown performing CPR. As sirens wail in the background, a third officer later arrives, apparently with a medical kit, but is also not seen performing CPR.

“Everyone knows that cops have been given the benefit of the doubt, They’re always assumed to be telling the truth, unless there’s tangible evidence otherwise.”

Had this video not come to light this officer would still be on the streets. We need to record all interaction with police. It’s getting hard to know who you can trust.

The debate over police use of force has been propelled in part by videos like the one in South Carolina. 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.

Watch the first few minutes of this video for the story.

WARNING! THIS VIDEO SHOWS AN ACTUAL SHOOTING OF A MAN IN BACK. DO NOT WATCH THIS VIDEO IF YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE IT!

Are you awake Yet?