New video from the S.C. police shooting

The South Carolina State Law Enforcement Division (SLED), which is investigating the recent fatal shooting of an unarmed, fleeing black man by a police officer, has released a video from the police officer's dash cam.

It shows the initial stopping of the Mercedes driven by Mr. Scott.   The traffic stop goes smoothly enough at first.   The officer tells him his tail light is out and asks for his drivers license and car registration.   Scott gives him his drivers license but explains that he is not buying the car until Monday so does not yet have insurance on it.   Officer says all right and goes back to the squad car to check the license.

Scott starts to get out of the car, and the office tells him to stay in the car.   A moment later, with the officer still back at the squad car, Scott bolts out of the car and takes off running.   At that point, there has been no physical contact between the two and no provocation on either side.  It had all been very polite.  A routine traffic stop.

The dash cam records the officer yelling at Scott to stop and then calling for backup.   The visual stays focused on the car ahead, and we see nothing more on the video of either Scott or the officer.  

In the article reporting on this video, a SLED spokesman stated that there was a passenger in Scott's car.   It's difficult to tell from the brief view we get on the video whether there is actually a person in the passenger seat.   And there has been no mention in any other reports of a passenger.

Any physical contact or struggle between Scott and the police officer, if it did happen, would have taken place out of the range of this video.   In other words, Scott runs away without there being any physical altercation between him and the police officer.   Whether there was a struggle later, we cannot tell from this video.

If there was in fact a passenger, why has this not been mentioned either by the police or the family?   What happened to this person?    Was his testimony sought by the police?   Did he also take off running and has not been identified?   A spokesman for SLED says the passenger remained in the car while the officer called for backup.    This must be followed to clear up whether it is true.   This person would be an invaluable witness.

Now we have even more unanswered questions.  We still lack any video showing a physical struggle between Scott and the police officer.   But on the two videos that now are available, there is nothing to validate the officer's claim that he felt his life threatened nor any reason to believe that Scott was dangerous, the only two valid reasons for shooting him.

Ralph