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 New York-based Sharpton said he hoped the prosecution of the
officer, who shot Walter Scott in the back on April 4, would mark a
turning point in the United States. The incident was caught on video
by a bystander.
"Rather than duck, the mayor stood up," Sharpton said of North
Charleston Mayor Keith Summey, who attended Sunday's service at a
local church where Sharpton spoke.
"Maybe now, between a Southern white mayor and a forgiving black
mother, maybe this nation will deal with this."
Scott's shooting was one of the latest in a series of killings that
have stoked a national outcry over police use of force against
African-Americans. Last year, the fatal shooting of an unarmed black
man in Ferguson, Missouri, and choking death of a black man in New
York City triggered a wave of demonstrations across the United
States.
Sharpton said it seemed providential that "way down in South
Carolina, where we are still protesting the Confederate flag, that
in the Deep South, a mayor and police chief did what we couldn’t get
mayors in the North and the Midwest to do."
 Sharpton told the New York Times he would urge authorities to
prosecute a black police officer, Clarence Habersham, who arrived on
the scene just after Scott was fatally shot. Critics have said video
evidence contradicted Habersham's report.
On Sunday in South Carolina, Sharpton said officers who had turned
in false reports should not expect superiors to cover for them,
regardless of race.
"If you lie, you go where liars go," he said. "It's not about white
cop, black cop. It's not about black and white. It's about right and
wrong."
The National Bar Association, comprised mainly of African-American
lawyers, said on Friday Habersham should be fired and indicted for
filing a report that said he aided Scott when there is no video
evidence that he or another officer performed CPR.
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Hundreds of mourners attended the funeral for Scott on Saturday in
Summerville, north of North Charleston where the shooting took
place. Scott, 50, was the father of four.
Sharpton, who preached at Charity Mission Baptist Church in North
Charleston, is expected to lead a prayer vigil on Sunday afternoon
at the site where Scott was shot.
Michael Slager, 33, the North Charleston officer who fired eight
times at Scott's back as he fled from a traffic stop, has been
charged with murder and dismissed from the police force.
Slager pulled Scott's black Mercedes-Benz over for a broken tail
light. Video from the dashboard camera in Slager's police cruiser
recorded a respectful exchange between the two men before the
officer returned to his patrol car.
Minutes later, after being told by Slager to stay in the Mercedes,
the man emerged from his car and ran off. Scott, who was apparently
unarmed, had a history of arrests for failing to pay child support.
A cell phone video taken by a bystander showed the men in a brief
tussle before Scott ran off again. It also shows Slager firing his
gun and Scott slumping onto the grass. There was a gap between the
dashboard video and the bystander video, however, as the officer was
not wearing a body camera.
(Writing by David Bailey; editing by Susan Thomas and Matthew Lewis)
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