The family of a black South Carolina man who was fatally shot by a white police officer as he was running away following a traffic stop is speaking about the dramatic cellphone video, taken by a witness, that captured his killing.
“When I looked at that tape, that was the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen,” Walter Scott’s mother, Judy, said on “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. And I just pray that this doesn’t have to happen to another person. This has got to stop.”
“When I saw it, I fell to my feet and my heart was broken,” Scott’s father, Walter Scott Sr., said on NBC’s “Today” show on Wednesday. “It would have never come to light. They would have swept it under the rug, like they did with so many others.”
Walter Scott, a 50-year-old father of four, was killed Saturday by North Charleston Police Officer Michael Thomas Slager after a traffic stop over a faulty brake light. Slager, who had used a Taser on Scott before opening fire, said he felt threatened and that Scott was trying to grab his stun gun.
But a video of the shooting released to news media outlets Tuesday night shows Slager fire as many as eight shots at Scott as he was running away. As Scott lies motionless, the officer orders him to put his hands behind his back, cuffs him, walks back to pick up an object and drops it near his body.
On Tuesday, Slager was charged with murder. If convicted, the five-year police veteran could face the death penalty. The FBI is also investigating.
“[It] looked like he was trying to kill a deer or something,” Scott Sr. said.
“My brother was gunned down like an animal,” Anthony Scott said on “CBS This Morning.” “It was just unbelievable to me to see that.”
“He was running for his life,” the alleged victim’s brother said on CNN. “I just couldn’t believe anything could’ve happened like that at a traffic stop.”
North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey condemned Slager’s decision to open fire.
“When you’re wrong, you’re wrong,” Summey said in announcing the murder charge. “And if you make a bad decision, [I] don’t care if you’re behind the shield or just a citizen on the street, you have to live by that decision.”
“What happened today doesn’t happen all the time,” L. Chris Stewart, an attorney for the Scott family, said at a news conference Tuesday. “What if there was no video?”
The video does not show the initial traffic stop. According to the Post and Courier, Scott had a warrant out for his arrest from family court at the time of his death. Stewart said Scott may have tried to run from the officer because he owed child support.
Scott’s death comes as local police forces try to rebuild trust between law enforcement and minority communities after the fatal shootings of unarmed black men in Ferguson, Mo., and Staten Island, N.Y., sparked nationwide protests, some of them violent.
“We do not want any of that nonsense to happen,” state representative Justin Bamberg said on CNN. “Let the justice process run its course.”
About 30 people were gathered for a planned rally at North Charleston City Hall early Wednesday.
Anthony Scott said he hopes his brother’s death is a wake-up call for police accountability.
“I don’t want to see any violence,” he said. “We want this to change how officers handle these situations, so no family has to suffer like we are suffering now.”
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