CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) – It didn’t take long for a grand jury in South Carolina to indict a white former city policeman for murder in the shooting death of a black man who tried to flee from a traffic stop.
State investigators presented the case against former North Charleston officer Michael Slager to a Charleston County grand jury on Monday and prosecutor Scarlett Wilson announced the indictment a few hours later.
A bystander’s cellphone video shows Slager firing eight times as 50-year-old Walter Scott tried to run away on April 4. The killing enflamed a national debate about how black people are treated by white police officers.
But it caused no unrest in North Charleston, where community leaders and Scott’s family praised the government’s swift response. Slager was charged with murder by state law enforcement agents and fired from the police force immediately after Scott’s family released the video.
The indictment of Slager is the fourth in less than six months in which a grand jury in South Carolina has agreed that white officers should stand trial in the shootings of black men.