Dash cam video shows traffic stop before fatal S.C. shooting
NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. -- Dash cam video shows the black man fatally shot by a white South Carolina police officer get out of his car and then run away during a traffic stop.
The video, released Thursday by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, shows what begins as a seemingly routine traffic stop.
The officer, Michael Slager, approaches the green Mercedes-Benz driven by Walter Lamer Scott and says he pulled him over because of a non-functioning taillight.
After the officer asks for license and registration, Scott can be heard saying he doesn't have registration or insurance on the vehicle because he was in the process of buying it. After a brief exchange, the officer returns to his cruiser.
About 27 seconds later, as Scott begins to get out, Slager tells him, "I need you to stay in the car."
About 16 seconds after that, Scott throws the door open and bolts. Officer Slager gives chase, his microphone still transmitting.
The video ends with what may have been a warning that Slager was about to use his police-issued stun gun. The officer is heard yelling, "Taser! Taser Taser!"
The next moment was apparently not captured by any camera: The officer caught up with Scott and a possible struggle over the Taser ensued.
Graphic cellphone video recorded by a bystander shows Slager fired eight shots from a distance at Scott, who was struck multiple times in the back. Slager claimed he shot Scott in self defense.
His family and the family's attorney have said Scott may have tried to run away because he owed child support and didn't want to go back to jail.
The dashcam video shows a passenger was in the car with Scott. His family's lawyer said Thursday they don't know who the person was but that they believe it to be one of his friends.
There is almost nothing in Slager's police personnel file to suggest that his bosses considered him a rogue officer capable of murdering a man during a traffic stop. In the community he served, however, people say this reflects what's wrong with policing today: Officers nearly always get the last word when citizens complain.
"We've had through the years numerous similar complaints, and they all seem to be taken lightly and dismissed without any obvious investigation," the Rev. Joseph Darby, vice president of the Charleston branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said Thursday.
The mostly black neighborhood where Saturday morning's shooting took place is far from unique, said Melvin Tucker, a former FBI agent and police chief in four southern cities who often testifies in police misconduct cases.
Nationwide, training that pushes preemptive action, military experience that creates a war zone mindset, and legal system favoring police in misconduct cases all lead to scenarios where officers to see the people they serve as enemies, he said.
"It's not just training. It's not just unreasonable fear. It's not just the warrior mentality. It's not just court decisions that almost encourage the use of it. It is not just race," Tucker said. "It is all of that."
Both Slager, 33, and Scott, 55, were U.S. Coast Guard veteran. Slager had the dismissed excessive force complaint and Scott had been jailed repeatedly for failing to pay child support, but neither man had a record of violence. Slager consistently earned positive reviews in his five years with the North Charleston Police.
Slager's new attorney, Andy Savage, said Thursday that he's conducting his own investigation, and that it's "far too early for us to be saying what we think." Slager's first attorney said he followed all proper procedures before using deadly force, but swiftly dropped him after the dead man's family released a bystander's video of the shooting.
The officer, whose wife is eight months pregnant, is being held without bond pending an Aug. 21 hearing on a charge of murder that could put him in prison for 30 years to life if convicted.
As a steady crowd left flowers, stuffed animals, notes and protest signs Thursday in the empty lot where Scott was gunned down, many said police in South Carolina's third-largest city routinely dismiss complaints of petty brutality and harassment, even when eyewitnesses can attest to police misbehavior. The result, they say, is that officers are regarded with a mixture of distrust and fear.
Slager's file includes a single excessive use-of-force complaint, from 2013: A man said Slager used his stun gun against him without reason. But Slager was exonerated and the case closed, even though witnesses told The Associated Press that investigators never followed up with them.
"It's almost impossible to get an agency to do an impartial internal affairs investigation. First of all the investigators doing it are co-workers of the person being investigated. Number two, there's always the tendency on the part of the departments to believe the officers," Tucker said.
Mario Givens, the man who accused Slager of excessive force in 2013, told the AP that Slager woke him before dawn by loudly banging on his front door, and saying "Come outside or I'll tase you!"
"I didn't want that to happen to me, so I raised my arms over my head, and when I did, he tased me in my stomach anyway," Givens said. "They never told me how they reached the conclusion. Never. They never contacted anyone from that night. No one from the neighborhood."
Givens said he's convinced Scott's death could have been prevented if Slager had been disciplined in his case.
"If they had just listened to me and investigated what happened that night, this man might be alive today," he said.
Darby also wonders if Saturday's fatal shooting might have turned out differently had the department thoroughly investigated the 2013 Taser complaint.
"I think he would have been rebuked instead of fired," Darby said. "But maybe it changes the way he sees things."
Darby and other civil rights leaders want North Charleston to create an independent citizens review board to review complaints against police, since "law enforcement is going to almost always give itself the benefit of the doubt."
Such boards are few and far between in South Carolina.
North Charleston police spokesman Spencer Pryor said Wednesday that the department now plans to review Givens' complaint, although he wouldn't say what difference that could make now.