The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division has shared footage from the patrol car of North Charleston officer Michael Slager showing the moments leading up to the fatal shooting of Walter Scott.
In the dashcam video, we see officer Slager following Scott who was driving a W124 Mercedes sedan, before pulling him over, allegedly for a broken third brake light.
After the officer approaches the car and talks to the 50-year old man, he returns to his patrol car. Scott then opens the door, but the cop tells him to get back in, which he does. However, moments later and while the officer was still inside his vehicle, Scott is seen opening the door and making a run for it.
What happened next was filmed by a bystander named Feidin Santana who caught the police officer firing several times at Scott’s back while he was running away.
The dashcam footage also shows that there was a passenger inside the car, with South Carolina police authorities telling CNN that another officer who responded to the incident reported that the unidentified person was detained in a patrol car.
Slager has since been fired from the North Charleston Police Department and sits in jail facing murder chargers for the weekend shooting.
Asked by CNN why the 50-year old man tried to run away, one of the attorneys for Scott’s family, Justin Bamberg, speculated that he might have been concerned about child support issues as he owed $18,104.43 and had a bench warrant issued against him. However, Bamberg noted that this does not justify what took place after.
“This dash cam footage does not change the fact that at the moment the officer shot and killed Mr. Scott — that shooting was completely unjustified. And that is the key point of both the criminal investigation and the civil lawsuit,” the lawyer said.