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 The footage, released by the South Carolina Law Enforcement
Division (SLED) and aired by CNN, was taken minutes before a
bystander's video recorded North Charleston Patrolman Michael Slager
gunning down 50-year-old Walter Scott as he ran. The video of the
shooting on Saturday led to Slager's arrest on a murder charge and
dismissal from his job.
The shooting was reminiscent of other police killings over the past
year in cities including New York; Ferguson, Missouri, and
Cleveland, Ohio, rekindling national outrage over excessive use of
force by law enforcement against black men.
The new video clip, which lasts just four minutes, shows Slager, 33,
approaching a black Mercedes-Benz and asking the driver, Scott, for
his license and proof of insurance. In an even, professional voice,
he tells Scott he was pulled over a broken tail light. A passenger
is also seen sitting in the car.
The driver and officer have a brief exchange that's inaudible, and
the officer returns to his patrol car. After about two minutes,
Scott gets out of the Mercedes car and signals to the officer, who
says: “You got to stay in the car.”
 Scott gets back into the vehicle and then about 20 seconds later, he
emerges again and takes off running.
After the shooting, Slager said he had fired his weapon because
Scott had taken his stun gun and he feared for his life. The second
video offers no evidence of the officer's claim, although there are
a gap between the two clips.
In the footage of the bystander, Scott does not appear armed at any
point, and neither video shows any physical confrontation between
the men.
Thom Berry, a SLED spokesman, said there were other videos taken
when other responding officers arrived at the scene, but none of
them contained the shooting or its aftermath.
Earlier on Thursday, civil rights leaders urged the South Carolina
legislature to "stop dragging its feet" on a bill that would require
all officers to wear cameras on their uniforms, echoing earlier
calls by the White House.
"It will lessen the chance that any more black men will be used for
target practice as Mr. Scott was," said Dot Scott, president of the
Charleston chapter of the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People.
After Walter Scott fled, the new video shows the male passenger
being frisked and then led away by another officer who arrived at
the scene. It was not clear what the passenger witnessed or whether
he remains in police custody.
Chris Stewart, a lawyer for the Scott family, told CNN the passenger
was a coworker of Scott but did not provide his name.
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Slager has retained prominent Charleston lawyer Andy Savage to
defend him, court records show. Savage's previous clients included
convicted al Qaeda operative Ali al-Marri.
"As we focus in on the facts, we will probably have more to say, but
it is far too early for us to be saying what we think," Savage said
in a statement.
No one answered a knock at Slager's home on Thursday in the
neighboring city of Hanahan. One neighbor said Slager and his wife,
who is eight months pregnant, had only recently moved into the tidy
house with wisteria blooming out front.
The now-dismissed officer's mother, Karen Sharpe, told ABC News that
she had not viewed the video showing him gunning down Scott, saying
it was too painful to watch.
With her voice choking, she expressed sympathy for the Scott family.
"Their life will never be the same again and my life will never be
the same again," she said.
The funeral for Scott, a father of four who had a history of arrests
for failing to pay child support, will be held on Saturday in
Summerville, his family said.
Hours before the second video was aired, another South Carolina man
emerged to say that Scott's shooting vindicated his own complaint of
abuse against Slager nearly two years ago that was dismissed after a
brief investigation.
"If they had really listened to me and investigated, then that man
would probably have been alive because he wouldn’t be an officer in
the field," Mario Givens said at a press conference with his lawyer,
who said his client planned a lawsuit over the September 2013 case.
(Additional reporting by Laila Kearney in New York and Mary
Wisniewski in Chicago; Writing by Colleen Jenkins and Frank McGurty;
Editing by Grant McCool)
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