South Carolina Cop Charged With Murder After Shooting Man During Traffic Stop
By Mark Berman
April 7 at 5:21 PM
A police officer in North Charleston, S.C., has been charged with murder after he shot a man during a traffic stop, authorities said Tuesday.
The decision, which follows a year of protests and demonstrations over excessive police violence, was announced by the city’s mayor and chief of police at a news conference Tuesday afternoon. Authorities said the officer would be charged with murder after they viewed video footage of the incident that showed the officer shooting the man in the back as he was fleeing the scene.
The police officer, Michael Slager, was arrested by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, the agency investigating the shooting. He has been charged with murder and faces a possible death sentence or life in prison.
“It’s been a tragic day for many,” Eddie Driggers, North Charleston’s chief of police, said at the news conference. “A tragic day for many.”
The shooting followed a traffic stop made shortly after 9:30 a.m. Saturday, according to a police report. After Slager stopped a vehicle, he began chasing the driver, described in the report as a black man and identified by local reports as Walter Scott.
At this point, Slager told the dispatcher, “Shots fired and the subject is down, he took my Taser,” according to the portion of the report filled out by another officer who relayed what he heard.
However, at least a portion of the confrontation was videotaped by another person in the area, authorities said Tuesday afternoon. The man who filed this footage took it to Scott’s family and it was given to the state law enforcement agency.
“I can tell you that as a result of that video and the bad decision made by our officer, he will be charged with murder,” North Charleston Mayor R. Keith Summey said at the news conference.
This shooting comes after incidents in Ferguson, Mo., and New York, among other places, have drawn heavy scrutiny over confrontations that ended with black men dead. The unrest has continued into this year, as a shooting in Madison, Wisc., was followed by lengthy protests.
Authorities stressed that the episode in South Carolina was not indicative of the city’s entire police force of 343 officers, instead calling this a singular “bad decision” made by one officer.
“I think all of these police officers, men and women, are like my children,” Driggers said. “So you tell me how a father would react to seeing his father do something? I’ll let you answer that.”
This was the 11th time an officer has shot someone in South Carolina so far this year, according to Thom Berry, a spokesman for the state Law Enforcement Division. Berry said that the investigation into this shooting is “still very much in progress,” so he declined to comment on details of how the agency obtained the video footage.
Although officers fatally shoot and kill hundreds of people each year, only a handful of cases result in the officer facing criminal charges. Video recordings of the fatal encounters are becoming pivotal factors in whether prosecutors and grand jurors bring charges, experts said.
“Video has changed everything because it provides documentation that was never available before,” said Philip M. Stinson, a criminologist at Bowling Green State University. “Now, everyday citizens, when they recognize there is a dispute, they start recording video with their smart phones.”
However, these recordings do not always result in officers being charged. Footage of a New York City police officer placing Eric Garner in a chokehold last summer provoked widespread outrage, but the grand jury decided not to indict the officer.
Officials and activists in South Carolina said they were asking the community to keep calm in the wake of the video’s release and the decision to seek murder charges against him.
“We want to ask the community to remain calm,” Elder Johnson of National Action Network said Tuesday.
[Kimberly Kindy contributed to this report.]
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
Mark Berman is a reporter on the National staff. He runs Post Nation, a destination for breaking news and developing stories from around the country.
April 7 at 5:21 PM
A police officer in North Charleston, S.C., has been charged with murder after he shot a man during a traffic stop, authorities said Tuesday.
The decision, which follows a year of protests and demonstrations over excessive police violence, was announced by the city’s mayor and chief of police at a news conference Tuesday afternoon. Authorities said the officer would be charged with murder after they viewed video footage of the incident that showed the officer shooting the man in the back as he was fleeing the scene.
The police officer, Michael Slager, was arrested by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, the agency investigating the shooting. He has been charged with murder and faces a possible death sentence or life in prison.
“It’s been a tragic day for many,” Eddie Driggers, North Charleston’s chief of police, said at the news conference. “A tragic day for many.”
The shooting followed a traffic stop made shortly after 9:30 a.m. Saturday, according to a police report. After Slager stopped a vehicle, he began chasing the driver, described in the report as a black man and identified by local reports as Walter Scott.
At this point, Slager told the dispatcher, “Shots fired and the subject is down, he took my Taser,” according to the portion of the report filled out by another officer who relayed what he heard.
However, at least a portion of the confrontation was videotaped by another person in the area, authorities said Tuesday afternoon. The man who filed this footage took it to Scott’s family and it was given to the state law enforcement agency.
“I can tell you that as a result of that video and the bad decision made by our officer, he will be charged with murder,” North Charleston Mayor R. Keith Summey said at the news conference.
This shooting comes after incidents in Ferguson, Mo., and New York, among other places, have drawn heavy scrutiny over confrontations that ended with black men dead. The unrest has continued into this year, as a shooting in Madison, Wisc., was followed by lengthy protests.
Authorities stressed that the episode in South Carolina was not indicative of the city’s entire police force of 343 officers, instead calling this a singular “bad decision” made by one officer.
“I think all of these police officers, men and women, are like my children,” Driggers said. “So you tell me how a father would react to seeing his father do something? I’ll let you answer that.”
This was the 11th time an officer has shot someone in South Carolina so far this year, according to Thom Berry, a spokesman for the state Law Enforcement Division. Berry said that the investigation into this shooting is “still very much in progress,” so he declined to comment on details of how the agency obtained the video footage.
Although officers fatally shoot and kill hundreds of people each year, only a handful of cases result in the officer facing criminal charges. Video recordings of the fatal encounters are becoming pivotal factors in whether prosecutors and grand jurors bring charges, experts said.
“Video has changed everything because it provides documentation that was never available before,” said Philip M. Stinson, a criminologist at Bowling Green State University. “Now, everyday citizens, when they recognize there is a dispute, they start recording video with their smart phones.”
However, these recordings do not always result in officers being charged. Footage of a New York City police officer placing Eric Garner in a chokehold last summer provoked widespread outrage, but the grand jury decided not to indict the officer.
Officials and activists in South Carolina said they were asking the community to keep calm in the wake of the video’s release and the decision to seek murder charges against him.
“We want to ask the community to remain calm,” Elder Johnson of National Action Network said Tuesday.
[Kimberly Kindy contributed to this report.]
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
Mark Berman is a reporter on the National staff. He runs Post Nation, a destination for breaking news and developing stories from around the country.
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