North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey announced that officer Michael Slager, 33, had been dismissed from the city’s police department at a tense news conference as dozens of demonstrators gathered at the local City Hall.
Summey also said that the rest of the police force in North Charleston will soon be equipped with body cameras.
Meanwhile, the city’s Police Chief Eddie Driggers appealed to the public to remain calm.
“I have been praying for peace, peace for the family and peace for this community,” he said.
Slager was charged on Tuesday with murder in the death of Walter Scott, 50, in what is the latest among several police shootings of black men over the past year in cities including New York, Ferguson, Missouri and Cleveland, Ohio. The incidents have stirred debate across the United States about police use of lethal force and race relations, also drawing President Barack Obama into the discussion.
Police said Saturday’s shooting occurred after Slager, who joined the department in 2009, stopped Scott for a broken brake light.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the US Department of Justice are investigating Scott’s shooting. Civil rights leaders called for calm, and many people praised the courage of the witness who filmed the killing and gave the video to Scott’s family.
Protests
Holding signs that read “The whole world is watching” and “Back turned, don’t shoot,” protesters at North Charleston’s City Hall said Scott’s death should not be viewed as an isolated incident.
The shooting was the 11th involving a police officer in South Carolina this year and the second in North Charleston, said Thom Berry, spokesman for the state’s law enforcement division. No one was injured in the prior incident in the city in January, he said.
The video shows a brief scuffle between the pair before Scott begins to run away. Slager is then seen taking aim with a handgun before shooting eight times at Scott’s back. Scott then slumps facedown onto the grass.
According to a police report, Slager told other officers Scott had taken his stun gun from him.
At no point in the video, which does not show the initial contact between the men, does Scott appear to be armed.
Slager is seen placing the victim in handcuffs as he lies on the ground, and then the officer walks back to a spot near where he opened fire.
The video then shows him appearing to pick something up, return to Scott, and then drop it next to him on the ground.
(BALOOGG'S BLOG, FRANCE 24 with REUTERS)
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