A white police officer in North Charleston, S.C.,
was charged with murder on Tuesday after a
video
surfaced showing him shooting in the back and killing an apparently unarmed
black man while the man ran away. The officer, Michael T. Slager, 33, said he
had feared for his life because the man had taken his
stun
gun in a scuffle after a traffic stop on Saturday. A video, however, shows
the officer firing eight times as the man, Walter L. Scott, 50, fled. The North
Charleston mayor announced the state charges at a news conference Tuesday
evening. The shooting came on the heels of high-profile instances of police
officers’ using lethal force in New York, Cleveland, Ferguson, Mo., and
elsewhere. The deaths have set off a national debate over whether the police are
too quick to use force, particularly in cases involving black men. A White House
task force has recommended a host of changes to the nation’s police policies,
and President Obama sent Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to cities around
the country to try to improve police relations with minority neighborhoods.
North Charleston is South Carolina’s third-largest city, with a population of
about 100,000. African-Americans make up about 47 percent of residents, and
whites account for about 37 percent. The Police Department is about 80 percent
white, according to data collected by the Justice Department in 2007, the most
recent period available. “When you’re wrong, you’re wrong,” Mayor Keith Summey
said during the news conference. “And if you make a bad decision, don’t care if
you’re behind the shield or just a citizen on the street, you have to live by
that decision.” The shooting unfolded after Officer Slager stopped the driver of
a Mercedes-Benz with a broken taillight, according to police reports. Mr. Scott
ran away, and Officer Slager chased him into a grassy lot that abuts a muffler
shop. He fired his
Taser,
an electronic stun gun, but it did not stop Mr. Scott, according to police
reports. Moments after the struggle, Officer Slager reported on his radio:
“Shots fired and the subject is down.
No comments:
Post a Comment