CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) – The attorney for a white former South Carolina police officer charged with murder in the shooting death of an unarmed black motorist asked a judge Tuesday to keep the dramatic cellphone video of the shooting out of the trial.
The motion came as a jury pool was qualified to hear the case of former North Charleston officer Michael Slager. He faces 30 years to life in prison if convicted in the April 2015 shooting of Walter Scott.
The video shot by a bystander shocked the nation, showing the 50-year-old Scott being shot eight times in the back.
In a motion filed Tuesday, Slager’s attorney Andy Savage called the video “prejudicial, inflammatory and factually deficient.” He said it was taken from the point of the bystander, Feidin Santana, 137 feet away and not from the officer’s perspective.
“In addition to the fact that the Santana video is obscured or blurry and thus confusing, more critically, it misdirects the factfinder’s attention to a perspective other than that of Officer Slager,” the motion said.