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 Patrolman Michael Slager killed motorist Walter Scott on April 4,
2015, firing eight times at his back as he fled a traffic stop for a
broken tail light. A bystander captured the shooting on cell phone
video. Scott, 50, was a father of four.
Slager's arrest on a murder charge may have helped spare North
Charleston the rioting that took place in other U.S. cities after
police killings of black men. He is awaiting trial, his lawyers
saying he acted in self-defense.
African Americans say their demands for more transparency in police
practices, such as the creation of a citizen review board, have gone
unheeded. Some complain of being subjected to overly aggressive
policing and racial profiling.
"This has got to stop. It's going to affect our children and our
grandchildren. We need to clean house," Milton Brewer, a businessman
and retired Air Force veteran, said last month at a community
gathering called by the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP).
 Civil rights organizations are urging the U.S. Justice Department to
investigate the police department. The NAACP's legal defense fund
has collected testimonials they hope will bolster the request for a
federal probe, said lawyer Monique Dixon.
"We want to make sure it doesn't happen again," said Edward Bryant
III, president of the NAACP's North Charleston chapter. No one
should "act as judge, jury and prosecutor on the streets in a police
car."
Mayor Keith Summey, who declined an interview request, said in a
statement that steps had been taken to rebuild trust in the city
where 47 percent of the 106,000 residents are black and about 78
percent of the city's police force is white, as are Summey and
Police Chief Eddie Driggers.
The entire police force is now equipped with body cameras and the
department launched two new community outreach programs, including
"front porch visits" aimed at forging relationships between people
and law enforcement.
Driggers "has built a more responsive, yet gentler department than
what we had at the beginning of 2015," Summey said. Driggers did not
respond to an interview request.
[to top of second column] |
RACIAL PROFILING
The Charleston Area Justice Ministry, an interfaith group that works
for social change, will ask the police department to allow an
external audit of its records for evidence of racial bias after the
group said it collected anecdotes of unwarranted searches and
questioning.
The group plans to present its findings to the city this month,
member Bill Thomas said.
State records show black drivers continue to be stopped by North
Charleston police at a higher rate than white drivers.
In both the nine months before Scott's death and the nine months
after, black drivers were stopped at almost twice the rate of white
drivers. Total traffic stops dropped by more than half in the nine
months following the shooting, according to the state Department of
Public Safety.
"I think they're laying low," James Johnson, president of the South
Carolina chapter of the National Action Network and a North
Charleston resident, said of police. "They've been under scrutiny."
Slager, 34, was released on bail in January and is scheduled to be
tried in October. He has said he feared for his life after being
attacked by Scott following the stop.
He was dismissed from the force, and the city reached a $6.5 million
wrongful death settlement with Scott's family last fall.
(Reporting by Harriet McLeod; Writing by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by
Daniel Trotta and Sandra Maler)
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