Carolina police shooting mystifies observers

(Grace Beahm/Post and Courier via AP, Pool).

But Judge Clifton Newman declared a mistrial today, allowing North Charleston police officer Michael Slager to possibly walk free.

Like most black people I know, I wasn’t especially surprised that a jury was unable to convict white SC police officer Michael Slager for killing Walter Scott, despite shooting him multiple times in the back and on video. “The rule of law has to be preserved in this country”, he said. “But I didn’t know [at the time] that it was a Taser – I just knew that it was something electric sound”. “I’m going to rest in the Lord”. Within an hour of the jury announcing its deadlock, Scarlett Wilson, the prosecutor for Charleston County, said that she could not “overstate our disappointment that this case was not resolved” and confirmed that her office would try Slager again. But Slager also faces federal civil rights charges in the case, for which he was indicted last May.

“In my heart, I will find the peace to forgive Michael Slager for doing that … but at this present time, until my family can see justice, no, there’s no forgiveness”, he said. “We have to live with the fact that Walter got gunned down, shot in the back”, Anthony Scott said.

“This whole notion that the Department of Justice is going to dismiss this, there’s no basis for saying that”, said Bill Nettles, who stepped down in June after six years as the USA attorney in SC.

On the stand, Slager had argued self-defense, telling jurors he shot Scott as he ran away because he posed a threat and could have turned around and charged him.

Scott’s mother, Judy Scott, said little.

Three former SC prison officers are facing attempted murder charges after they reportedly stabbed a handcuffed inmate in October. After shooting Scott, Slager is then seen picking up the object and placing it next to the lifeless body. Jurors deliberated murder and voluntary manslaughter charges for more than four days.

Scott, 50, was killed in April 2015 after he was shot five times.

My thoughts and prayers are with the Scott family.

A federal prosecutor says Dylann Roof was a man with a “cold and hateful heart” when he pulled out a Glock pistol and shot and killed nine black parishioners at a Charleston, South Carolina, church previous year. It’s why, in each shooting that goes to trial, we hear police officers say the same thing. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., Trump’s selection for attorney general, and an adviser for the transition did not respond to requests for comment about the case. Roof’s lawyers said they worry jurors in their case may feel pressure from the community to make up for what some saw as injustice in Slager’s case.

“I think it was malice and forethought, I think it was murder”.

The video dominated the trial. “More than 60 times he hit parishioners”, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Richardson told jurors during his opening statement.

Scott was pulled over in North Charleston for having a broken taillight on his 1990 Mercedes and then fled the auto, running into a vacant lot.

“What this means is very important, which is that the clash in the streets between Black Lives Matter-type movements and police is going to be sharper, and the stakes of that debate are going to be deepened, because both sides are being confirmed”, he says.

Slager told the jury that he had been consumed by “total fear” in the moments before he opened fire on Scott.

Outrage erupted in North Charleston after the killing of Walter Scott, but residents’ anger intensified even more due to the racial imbalance clearly evident in the police force.

After Eric Garner was killed by a New York City police officer’s chokehold in 2014, New York City Public Advocate Letitia James wrote an opinion piece for MSNBC that explained a potential conflict for prosecutors.

This story has been corrected to reflect that Scott family attorney was referencing the defendant, not the victim.