White South Carolina Police Officer Shoots Fleeing Black Man in Back

The NYT:

A white police officer in North Charleston, S.C., was charged with murder on Tuesday after a video surfaced showing him shooting in the back and killing an apparently unarmed black man while the man ran away.

The officer, Michael T. Slager, 33, said he had feared for his life because the man had taken his stun gun in a scuffle after a traffic stop on Saturday. A video, however, shows the officer firing eight times as the man, Walter L. Scott, 50, fled.

The Times has the video, and it is disturbing. Slager shoots Scott in the back as he’s fleeing, then plants some sort of evidence on Scott’s body — apparently his service taser, to create false evidence that they were struggling over the weapon when he shot him — in plain sight of another officer on the scene.

They even lied about performing CPR on Scott as he bled to death:

Police reports say that officers performed CPR and delivered first aid to Mr. Scott. The video shows that for several minutes after the shooting, Mr. Scott remained face down with his hands cuffed behind his back. A second officer arrives, puts on blue medical gloves and attends to Mr. Scott, but is not shown performing CPR. As sirens wail in the background, a third officer later arrives, apparently with a medical kit, but is also not seen performing CPR.

Update: Here’s how the story was being reported before the video surfaced.

★ Tuesday, 7 April 2015