Mike Ryan
The Shooting of Walter Scott occurred on April 4, 2015, in North Charleston, South Carolina, following a daytime traffic stop for a non-functioning brake light. Scott, an unarmed black man, was fatally shot by Michael Slager, a white North Charleston police officer. I don’t like that the stories always label the race of Scott or his killer Michael Slager, but this did add to the visual shock when people watched videos of the shooting on the news.
Most Americans carry on with their daily grind and hear stories about crooked cops, coverups, racial profiling etc… but never really see it in their community and tend put it off as lore, not all that rampant, and maybe not even true. This case showed how things went to a traffic stop to death and showed just how quickly lies to cover it up started.
Between the police dash cam video and cell phone video from a bystander, nearly the whole scene from start to finish was recorded. It’s believed Mr. Scott fled from the car because he was afraid he had warrants for child support.
You can find multiple videos about this here>>>https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Walter+Scott+death
Federal prosecutors sought a life sentence, arguing Slater, then a North Charleston police officer, had committed second-degree murder and also should be punished for obstructing justice by providing the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division with false statements. Slager, 36, shot Scott five times in the back “for running away, simply for having a broken taillight,” Jared Fishman of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division told the court in his closing statement this week. It’s “time to call it what it was — a murder,” Fishman said, specifying second-degree murder.
But defense attorney Andy Savage argued that while Slager’s actions were criminal, they did not amount to murder. The appropriate offense was voluntary manslaughter, Slager’s attorneys said.
Two years later Slager, plead guilty to charges that he violated the slain man’s civil rights.
The plea by the officer, Michael T. Slager, assured a rare conviction of a law enforcement official for an on-duty killing, and it left him facing the possibility of life in prison for the April 2015 shooting of Walter L. Scott. Mr. Slager pleaded guilty to a single charge of willfully using excessive force to deprive Mr. Scott of his civil rights.
“We asked for justice,” Anthony Scott, one of Mr. Scott’s brothers, said. “We received justice.”
You can Read More on this via the links below:
The family sued North Charleston and the city settled for $6.5 million.
https://www.cnn.com/2015/10/08/us/walter-scott-north-charleston-settlement/index.html
