E.L.D. Cornerstone.  Life in words & pictures

April 8, 2015

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — A white South Carolina police officer who claimed he killed a black man in self-defense has been fired and faces murder charges after a bystander's video recorded him firing eight shots at the man's back as he ran away. The city's mayor also said he's ordered body cameras to be worn by every single officer on the force. The officer, Michael Thomas Slager, has been fired, but the town will continue to pay for his health insurance because his wife is eight-month's pregnant, said North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey, who called it a tragedy for two families.

Police Chief Eddie Diggers said he was "sickened" by what he saw on the video, but his explanations were repeatedly interrupted by shouts of "no justice, no peace!" and other hard questions that he said he couldn't answer. The mayor then took back the podium and threatened to close the news conference. Protests began within hours of the murder charge against Slager, which was announced Tuesday, the same day the video was released to the media. About 75 people gathered outside City Hall in North Charleston, led by a Black Lives Matter, a group formed after the fatal shooting of another black man in Ferguson, Missouri.

"Eight shots in the back!" local organizer Muhiydin D'Baha hollered through a bullhorn, and the crowd yelled "In the back!" in response. The video recorded by an unidentified bystander shows North Charleston Patrolman Michael Thomas Slager dropping his stun gun, pulling out his handgun and firing at Walter Lamer Scott from a distance as he runs away. The 50-year-old man falls after the eighth shot, fired after a brief pause. The dead man's father, Walter Scott Sr. said Wednesday that the officer "looked like he was trying to kill a deer running through the woods." He also told NBC's "Today Show" that his son may have tried to flee because he owed child support and didn't want to go back to jail.

The video is "the most horrible thing I've ever seen," said Judy Scott, the slain man's mother, on ABC's "Good Morning America."

"I almost couldn't look at it to see my son running defenselessly, being shot. It just tore my heart to pieces," she said. The bystander is assisting investigators after providing the video to Scott's family and lawyers.

Deflecting many of the questions from a hostile audience at Wednesday's news conference, Summey said state investigators have the case. Police initially released a statement that promised a full investigation but relied largely on the officer's description of the confrontation, which began with a traffic stop Saturday as Slager pulled Scott over for a faulty brake light. Slager's then-attorney David Aylor released another statement Monday saying the officer felt threatened and fired because Scott was trying to grab his stun gun. Aylor dropped Slager as a client after the video surfaced, and the officer, a five-year veteran with the North Charleston police, appeared without a lawyer at his first appearance Tuesday. He was denied bond and could face 30 years to life in prison if convicted of murder. The shooting comes amid a plunge in trust between law enforcement and minorities after the officer-involved killings of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner on Staten Island, New York. Nationwide protests intensified after grand juries declined to indict the officers in both cases.

"We have to take a stand on stuff like this ... we can't just shake our heads at our computer screens," said Lance Braye, 23, who helped organize Wednesday's demonstration. Scott's family and their attorney, L. Chris Stewart, appealed to keep the protests peaceful, saying the swift murder charge shows that the justice system is working so far in this case.