Mistrial: Killing of Walter Scott
Prosecutors said they would look for another trial for Mr. Slager, who was terminated after the shooting, and the Scott family communicated certainty that he would at last be indicted. Mr. Slager’s legal counselor, Andrew J. Savage III, did not remark as he cleared out the court, where members of the jury had heard declaration for around four weeks.
No bit of confirmation was more focal than a cellphone video, which a bystander, Feidin Santana, recorded as he strolled to take a shot at April 4, 2015. L. Chris Stewart, the legal advisor for the group of Walter L. Scott, the dark man who was shot dead by the previous South Carolina cop Michael T. Slager, talked after news of Mr. Slager’s malfeasance, as did Mr. Scott’s mom. Mr. Stewart said that the officer had “postponed” equity however that he would not “get away” it.
The video started simply after Mr. Scott fled by walking from an activity stop for a broken taillight, however it was stunning and striking. In the recording, the men take part in a battle, and afterward, as Mr. Scott flees, Mr. Slager raises his Glock handgun and discharge. Mr. Scott tumbles to the ground. He was no less than 17 feet away when Mr. Slager started to shoot.
It was a succession that legal hearers saw again and again, and the sound of the shots more than once pierced the court. On Monday, the presence of the video, and its failure to prompt to a conviction, energized a significant part of the tumult and dissatisfaction about the trial’s determination, inadequate as it might have been.
“It disheartens me, yet I am not stunned,” said Howard Friedman, a social equality legal advisor and the previous president of the National Police Accountability Project. “The way that out of 12 individuals you would discover one individual so biased for police is disheartening, not stunning, in light of the fact that I realize that sort of partiality for police is out there.”