This happened in North Charleston, S.C.; and, unlike many other police shootings, this police officer was promptly arrested for murder. The shooting was caught on video from a bystander's phone.
Fifty year old Walter Scott was stopped by Officer Michael Slager for a broken tail light on his car. Scott had several outstanding arrest warrants for unpaid child support and failing to show up for hearings; so, apparently fearing that he would be taken to jail, he took off running.
The video shows Scott running away from the officer, who then fired eight times at the fleeing man's back before he fell face down, dead. The officer walks up, looks at him, pulls his arms around behind him. He walks away for a moment -- then comes back and drops something beside Scott's body.
The story that Slager told officers who arrived was that he tried to subdue Scott with his taser, but Scott grabbed it away from him and started running. Then he shot him.
Presumably the taser was the object that the video shows Slager dropping beside Scott's body -- after he was dead -- to make it look like he had taken it.
Every case is different, of course -- but a common feature is that a black man is originally confronted by a police officer for a minor offense -- and winds up dead. Every one like this, with irrefutable video evidence of the officer's guilt, lends credence to the other cases where officers have escaped indictments for wrongful death.
Ralph
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