Police Homicide in South Carolina

This past weekend, Walter Scott, a 50 year-old black man was pulled over for a broken brakelight by North Charleston, SC police officer Michael Slager.  The unarmed Scott, who had warrants for non-payment of child support, became restless and unruly and was tased by the cop.  Scott broke free of the taser probes and ran from Slager, who methodically shot Scott in the back EIGHT times as he was fleeing.  Slager then apparently planted his taser next to Scott in an attempt to claim that Scott had taken his taser from him.  A video of the shooting was captured by a witness and provided to the New York Times.

The shooting, captured as it was on video, prompted local authorities to charge officer Slager with murder, and even State Republican officials were forced to condemn the shooting of the fleeing, unarmed man.  It begs the question of what would have happened if a good citizen hadn't recorded the shooting.  The presumption is that the police officer's statement that he felt he was in danger would have been accepted as mostly true, despite the victim being shot in the back.

Here's hoping that this case -- finally, after the Eric Garner choke-hold killing, and other fatal police-African American incidents -- results in conviction and a warning to cops whose biases find their way out of the barrel of a gun.