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Breaking News
S.C. Police Officer Charged With Murder, Then Fired After Fatal Shooting Captured On Video
Video caption of the fatal shooting of Mr. Scott. ... (inset) the Mr. Scott and his family.
Michael Slager ... former officer
Some left letters for Mr. Scott’s family. Others left bouquets of flowers, real and plastic.
“When I saw the car I knew who it was,” said Keyron Blandin, who lives nearby and knows Mr. Scott’s family, as he snapped pictures of the site Wednesday. “I feel for both families,” said the 64-year-old, adding that Mr. Slager’s “life is gone.”
Still, the demonstrations were relatively restrained and entirely nonviolent. U. S. At- torney Bill Nettles said he at- tributed the relative calm in North Charleston to five years of strategic partnerships be- tween federal and local law en- forcement and the community, including the establishment of a diversion program for low- level drug offenses and street- level community policing through a federal program called Stop and Take a New Di- rection, or Stand.
“The lack of violence in the
Demonstrators Protest.
NORTH CHARLESTON, SC -City leaders moved swiftly Wednesday to try to tamp down racial tensions after the shooting death of an unarmed Black man by a white officer, captured on video, triggered protests and led to murder charges against the policeman.
While the demonstrations were peaceful, rage simmered beneath the surface, as some citizens complained that, were it not for the cell phone footage by a passerby, concern about excessive police force would have been treated very differ- ently by authorities.
North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey said in a news conference that the offi- cer, Michael Slager, had been fired, a day after he was charged with murder in the Saturday shooting of Walter Scott following a routine traf- fic stop over a broken brake light.
Lawyer Andrew J. Savage said in a statement he had been hired to represent Mr. Slager, who was being held in the Charleston County detention center. But he declined to com- ment further, saying “As we focus in on the facts we will probably have more to say, but itisfartooearlyforustobe saying what we think.”
As part of the city’s re- sponse, Mr. Summey also announced that he had signed an executive order for the city to add 150 body cameras for of- ficers, on top of 101 that previ- ously had been planned, as South Carolina legislators pushed for a broader law to mandate the technology.
But the actions didn’t fully quell the frustration over the shooting, which spurred pro- testers to gather outside City Hall on Wednesday, chanting and waving posters with slo- gans such as “Black Lives Mat- ter.”
“Without the video he’d be just another Black man dead,” said Jeremy Johnson, 21, a fast-food worker. He said he wanted to keep pressure on of- ficials to clamp down on police brutality and draw attention to the death of Mr. Scott.
The shooting in the sprawl- ing industrial city of 104,000 people whose population is
47% Black, according to census data, unfolded in an empty lot the size of a city block, behind a closed car dealership.
The 50-year-old Mr. Scott had been pulled over in his Mercedes on Saturday morn- ing along a busy stretch of strip malls, drugstores and auto shops. He ran across a side street and into the overgrown lot, which is partially shielded by trees, where his confronta- tion with Mr. Slager culmi- nated in shots being fired into his back.
Justin Bamberg, a lawyer for the Scott family, said Mr. Scott might have run away from the officer because he owed child support and had been arrested in the past for lack of payment.
“I don’t think he wanted to go back to jail,” Mr. Bamberg said.
Mr. Scott’s mother, Judy Scott, wept in an interview on ABC on Wednesday, saying that watching the shooting video was “the most horrible thing I have ever seen.”
“It tore my heart to pieces,” she said.
In an interview with NBC, the man who took the video, identified by the network as Feidin Santana, said he saw a struggle between a man and a police officer. He said he started recording after he heard the officer’s Taser stun- gun being deployed.
“I remember the police had control of the situation,” Mr. Santana said in the interview. “He had control of Scott. And Scott was trying just to get away from the Taser.
“As you can see in the video, the police officer just shot him in the back,” Mr. Santana said. “I knew right away I had something on my hands.”
Todd Rutherford, a Co- lumbia. SC, defense lawyer, said he was representing the man who shot the video but de- clined to comment on his be- half.
On Wednesday, small groups of people clustered be- hind a rusted chain link fence near the scene of the shooting and compared notes on where Mr. Scott appeared to have fallen, and where the person who shot the video likely stood.
streets over this shooting is a peace dividend the city is get- ting for that investment,” he said in an interview.
In the news conference, Po- lice Chief Eddie Driggers said he didn’t know whether a police stun gun had been placed at Mr. Scott’s side after he was shot. The video ap- peared to show the officer dropping something near Mr. Scott after the shooting.
“I have watched the video and I was sickened by what I saw,” Mr. Driggers said.
Mr. Bamberg, the lawyer for the Scott family, said Wednesday that they would be filing a lawsuit against the North Charleston police de- partment and “anyone else re- sponsible for making this happen.”
The family first learned of the existence of the bystander’s video on Sunday, when he ap- proached the family and said, “I have something that I think you need to see,” Mr. Bamberg
said.
The witness showed the
family the video and later gave them a copy, Mr. Bamberg said. The family quickly turned it over to state investigators, he said.
Whether Scott's civil rights were violated will be part of the Justice Department's investi- gation.
In the meantime, Slager re- mains behind bars. He was de- nied bail at a bond hearing Tuesday night.
Slager initially said through his attorney, David Aylor, that he followed the ap- propriate policies and proce- dures.
But Aylor later told CNN that he no longer represents the officer.
Slager has been an em- ployee of the North Charleston Police Department for about five years and five months.
Instead of wearing his police uniform, Slager now wears a jail uniform.
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