Officer faces murder charge in shooting of black man

CHARLESTON, S.C. – A white South Carolina police officer was charged with murder Tuesday, hours after law enforcement officials viewed a dramatic video that appears to show him shooting a fleeing man several times in the back.

North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey announced the charges at a hastily called news conference in which he said City Patrolman Michael Thomas Slager made “a bad decision.”

The shooting, which began as a traffic stop, occurred as Americans grapple with issues of trust between law enforcement and minority communities after a series of deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of police. They include the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner on Staten Island, New York. Both sparked protests nationwide.

In the Charleston case, authorities said the victim, 50-year-old Walter Lamer Scott, was shot after the officer already hit him with a stun gun.

“When you’re wrong, you’re wrong,” Summey said. “When you make a bad decision, don’t care if you’re behind the shield or a citizen on the street, you have to live with that decision.”

A video of the shooting released to news media outlets shows the officer firing several times at the man’s back while he’s running away. It then shows the man falling down, the officer slowly walking toward him, and the officer placing him in handcuffs. He then walks away as he talks on his radio, and Scott is not moving. The officer later is seen dropping something by Scott’s side.

One of Scott’s brothers told a news conference later Tuesday that the family was thankful for the video, shot by an unidentified witness, because without it, they might not have gotten justice.

“If we didn’t see the video, would we know the truth?” said Anthony Scott. “From the beginning … all we wanted was the truth. … We can’t get my brother back … but through the process, justice has been served.”

The family plans to sue the police department, according to their attorney, L. Chris Stewart.

Slager’s attorney, meanwhile, dropped him as a client Tuesday, a day after he had released a statement saying the officer felt threatened and that Scott was trying to grab the officer’s stun gun.

“This is a terrible tragedy that has impacted our community,” said the attorney, David Aylor.