South Carolina Ex-Police Officer gets a murder Indictment in Walter Scott Killing!!!

[dixiegrrrrl]

South Carolina prosecutor Scarlett Wilson said Monday that a grand jury has indicted former North Charleston police officer Michael Slager on a murder charge.

Slager is accused of shooting and killing motorist Walter Scott. In April, Slager pulled Scott over, reportedly for a faulty brake light. Video released showed the men talking then Scott getting out of his vehicle and running away.

According to a police report, Scott, a 50-year-old African-American man, did not comply with an officer’s demands and tried to grab Slager’s stun gun. Slager is white.
A widely circulated video taken by a bystander with a phone shows Scott attempting to run. His back is to Slager, who, from a few yards away, raises his gun and fires.
Slager shot eight times, and Scott was hit five times. Scott died at the scene.

Slager was fired from the department, arrested and charged with murder.

http://fox40.com/2015/06/08/south-carolina-ex-police-officer-indicted-in-walter-scott-killing/

[Warpy]

1. An indictment is certainly progress in convincing police that black lives matter

Slager would do well to plea bargain down, although I don't honestly see a murder conviction coming out of a SC jury. I've been wrong about that before, but not often.

Slager just got pissed off about being disobeyed.

The stun gun story was the first one that was debunked since Scott could be seen trailing the leads until they disconnected and Slager was videotaped putting the box next to the body after the fact.

Keep those videos of cops coming, folks, and if any cop gets stuffy about it, tell him that video can exonerate a good cop as easily as it can nail a dirty one.

[meow2u3]

9. A murder CONVICTION would be even better

to send the message to cops that they're no longer above the law and that black lives indeed matter.

[Warpy]

10. Even a plea down to manslaughter will help

I have little faith in SC juries convicting a white cop who shot a black man.

[truebluegreen]

2. Good.

[countryjake]

3. Has something new happened in this prosecution? Check the date...

of the article you've linked to. (or maybe fox news is just slow on the uptake, ha!)

To my knowledge, Slager was indicted earlier this year for the murder of Walter Scott, on June 8. I haven't heard anything new about the case since that week when the indictment was finally handed down.

http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20150608/PC16/150609410/1177/solicitor-michael-slager-indictment-in-walter-scott-shooting-just-the-beginning

Solicitor: Michael Slager indictment in Walter Scott shooting just the beginning Jun 8 2015

A Charleston County grand jury on Monday indicted the former North Charleston policeman who fatally shot Walter Scott, marking the second time in the past year that a white South Carolina officer has been formally charged with murder in a black man’s death.

The expected milestone in prosecutors’ case against Michael Slager came two months after the officer fired eight times as the 50-year-old Scott ran away. Captured on a bystander’s cellphone, a video of the shooting became a visual battle cry for residents who long lamented police tactics in North Charleston and for activists nationwide who questioned how quickly officers resort to deadly force.

Slager has been jailed since his arrest, which was prompted by the footage that surfaced publicly three days after the April 4 shooting.

The indictment allows the case to inch closer to trial. A team of the area’s three top prosecutors plans to pursue a trial in Charleston despite concerns about fairness.

Ninth Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson said Monday that she had received the last part of a file from the State Law Enforcement Division, whose agents examine most officer-involved shootings in South Carolina.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/albertsamaha/south-carolina-prosecutor-grapples-with-racially-charged-kil

South Carolina Prosecutor Grapples With Racially Charged Killings June 18, 2015
Solicitor Scarlett Wilson has a tense relationship with black activists, but with the police shooting of Walter Scott and the massacre at the Emanuel AME Church, she is now tasked with prosecuting two of the most high-profile racially charged murder cases in the country.

Facebook.com / Via Facebook: Solicitor-Scarlett-A-Wilson

~snip~

Less than two weeks after the 9th Circuit Solicitor brought murder charges against a white police officer who shot an unarmed black man, Wilson is now set to prosecute the white man suspected of killing nine black people in a Charleston, South Carolina, church. Wilson announced the state would be bringing murder charges against Dylann Roof on Thursday, with more charges potentially to come.

~snip~

But, according to one recent claim, Wilson’s success in the courtroom has been at least in part thanks to a “pattern of misconduct.”

In 2014, lawyer Desa Ballard filed a complaint against Wilson for allegedly fostering “an office environment with the attitude ‘we do what we can get away with.’” The suit accused Wilson’s office of withholding evidence from defense attorneys in at least two cases. Wilson denied the accusations. A judge dismissed the complaint.

To Dixon, minority residents seem to take the brunt of Wilson’s tenacity.

“She goes in on black folks and on Hispanic folks,” Dixon said. “It’s like one rule book was made for them, but when it comes to the white population there’s a whole different set of rules.”

Earlier this year, when video emerged of North Charleston police officer Michel Slager shooting Walter Scott in the back as he ran away, Dixon and other leaders were skeptical of whether Wilson would push hard enough in pursuit of charges.

“Her reputation has always been to back the police department,” Elder James Johnson, president of the local National Action Network branch, told BuzzFeed News. “The history led us to believe not to trust her.”

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. drats...you are correct....

I went from a story on one page to the linked headline of this, not suspecting the link would be outdated.
My bad....
They DO put those dates in teeny print, tho, don't they?

[countryjake]

6. I've fallen victim to the same thing before...

lots of news articles don't even have dates posted on them anymore and when you post the link, the date will be obscured within a bunch of other numbers, making it even more confusing (which reminds me of the "sell-by" dates that are sometimes impossible to figure out on certain products).

It is fantastic important news, anyway, and with it being summertime, lots may never have even heard about Slager's indictment when it happened, since the Mother Emanuel Church massacre took over the air waves soon after.

I did edit my original reply to include a bit about 9th Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson, who many still rightfully want removed from Slager's prosecution. She surely cannot be trusted to bring justice for Walter Scott.

Here's a little more:

Protesters vow to keep rallying until Solicitor Scarlett Wilson recuses herself from Walter Scott case
May 1 2015

http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20150501/PC16/150509946/

About 20 protesters held up signs and made speeches Friday outside the Charleston County judicial center in downtown Charleston, demanding that 9th Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson find someone else to prosecute the white North Charleston police officer who shot a fleeing black man in the back.

The protesters said they will continue holding protests every day until she steps down from the case. They want her replaced with a solicitor from outside the area.

~snip~

Thomas Dixon of The Coalition: People United To Take Back Our Community, who organized the protest, read a statement explaining the group’s concerns.

“In several of the previous cases of this type that she has overseen, there have been far too many ‘questionable circumstances’ left on the table at the end of the investigations, and police officers involved in these shootings returning to duty, leaving a community to wonder whether or not justice had truly been served by the 9th Circuit Solicitor’s Office and Solicitor Wilson,” he said.

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. Good info on Scarlett.....

I hope the attorneys who filed the dismissed complaint with approach Southern Poverty Law Center or ACLU.

[Lurks Often]

4. Expect a guilty verdict

barring some evidence that drastically alters what appeared to have happen in the video, the police officer is going to jail.

I expect a plea deal, rather then a jury trial.

[countryjake]

7. An excellent interview with the guy who videoed the murder of Walter Scott

'I dream about it every night': what happens to Americans who film police violence? - 15 August 2015

When Feidin Santana filmed Walter Scott’s death, it marked a turning point in the US civil rights movement – and in Santana’s life. He and others who have taken the law into their own hands tell their stories

by Oliver Laughland and Jon Swaine


http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/15/filming-police-violence-walter-scott-michael-brown-shooting


Feidin Santana relives the morning of Saturday 4 April 2015 on a near continuous loop. It was around 9.30am and the 23-year-old was running uncharacteristically late for work. As he walked his usual route through the back streets of North Charleston, something caught his eye: a black man running away from a white police officer.

Santana followed the chase for a few yards to a deserted patch of lawn behind a pawn shop and a car dealership. Here the officer caught up with the man, and ended up on top of him. Watching from behind a chainlink fence, Santana instinctively reached for his phone and pressed record.

The morning was still, silent. “You could hear birds flying, the swing of their wings,” Santana says as he stands, three months later, where he was that day. “You could hear everything; the sounds of the officer, the gunshots. Everything.”

Santana had hoped he might be noticed. “I believed my presence would prevent something,” he says softly, his voice almost drowned by the hum of cicadas. “But it didn’t happen that way.”

Instead, Santana’s steady hand captured the moment the unarmed, 50-year-old man, Walter Scott, broke away from the officer, Michael Slager, and attempted to flee. The officer paused for a moment, pointed his gun and fired about eight rounds until Scott lay face down on the ground.

Dixiegrrrrl, since your thread already has many recs, I'm posting this here in the hopes that lots more might read this excellent article. It'd be great as it's own thread, but hardly anybody ever reads stuff that I've put up and I'd hate to see it drop like a stone. This piece should be on the front page!