Michael Slager will have to wait to find out his fate.
A judge is weighing whether the former North Charleston police officer, who’s been charged with murder in the shooting death of Walter Scott, should have the opportunity to be released from jail on bond.
Slager was denied bail at an April hearing. He’s been in solitary confinement ever since. At a court hearing on Thursday, Slager’s lawyer said he should be placed on house arrest, arguing that the former police officer does not have a previous criminal record, isn’t a flight risk and is considered low-risk for violent behavior.
“He wants his day in court. He wants the world to know what happened that day,” attorney Andy Savage said. “He wants them to know what the process of his thoughts were that day.”
Savage spent more than an hour criticizing the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division’s investigation of the case, accusing authorities of destroying evidence. He said the decisions to fire Slager from his job as a police officer in North Charleston and charge him with murder were premature, happening “amid a national focus on police conduct” before authorities conducted a thorough investigation.
But Solicitor Scarlett Wilson, who’s prosecuting the case, said Slager is a danger to the community and a flight risk. She painted a much harsher picture of the former police officer, criticizing Slager for painting himself as a victim when he was the one who opened fire that day in April.
“I think the evidence is clear, and I believe that the evidence that we have given to Mr. Savage, and the evidence that we are continuing to develop, supports malice of forethought,” she said. “Mr. Slager has doubled down on, he did nothing wrong, nothing at all. … It was pure self-defense. And he’s gone about that in a way to make himself the victim.”
She also criticized Savage for presenting a lab report that indicated Scott had cocaine and alcohol in his system at the time of the shooting.
“That is something, again, that we believe was put out there to embarrass Mr. Scott’s family, and to make it seem like he was in a cocaine frenzy, which is just not the case,” she said. “Should he have resisted arrest? Should he have fled from Officer Slager? No, he shouldn’t have. But that doesn’t mean that Mr. Slager should have become a firing squad and executed Mr. Scott.”
A traffic stop, then a shooting
Slager pulled over Scott on April 4, reportedly for a broken brake light. Scott was later shot in the back by Slager as he was running away.
A bystander recorded the shooting, and the graphic footage sparked outrage and reignited a national conversation around race and policing.
Scott was black; Slager is white.
Slager told investigators Scott did not comply with his demands and tried to grab his stun gun. The cell phone video shows what appeared to be a quick scuffle.
Scott then runs away from Slager, who raises his gun and fires eight times, striking Scott, who was unarmed and whose back was turned to Slager as he fled. Scott died at the scene.
Slager was swiftly fired after the video of the shooting surfaced.
“I have watched the video, and I was sickened by what I saw,” North Charleston police Chief Eddie Driggers told reporters at the time.
In court on Thursday, Savage said there was more to the story. The video of the shooting that drew widespread attention, he said, was “of questionable origin and questionable manipulation.”
“There was a terribly violent struggle between Mr. Scott and Mr. Slager,” he said.
Wilson discussed the video in court, noting that it shows that after shooting Scott five times in the back, Slager — a veteran EMT officer — never attempted to render aid.
Instead, she said, “he put handcuffs on a dying or dead Walter Scott.”
“There are thousands and thousands of law enforcement officers that get it right every single day, every single day,” she said. “This one got it terribly wrong.”
‘The wound keeps opening up’
State Circuit Judge Clifton Newman said he’d take Slager’s bond request under advisement and rule at a later date.
Scott’s family was in the courtroom Thursday and pleaded with the judge to deny bail.
His mother sobbed as she addressed the court.
“That was my son, my middle son, that was murdered without mercy, no mercy at all, shot not just one or two times, but from five to eight times, like he was not even a human being,” Judy Scott said. “I miss my son. I am very devastated. … I loved him very much and I miss him, and he was murdered with no mercy. Why should Slager have mercy? Why should he hug his son when I have to go down to Live Oak (cemetery). I can’t hear Walter anymore.”
Anthony Scott, Walter Scott’s brother, said Thursday’s court hearing marked a bittersweet moment for his family.
“Today was a good day and a bad day,” he said. “We didn’t get a decision today, but we did get to see my brother’s murderer for the first time. I felt something lifted up from my heart.”
But as he saw Slager sitting before the judge, making his case, he thought about how his brother never had that chance.
“It is a painful day for the family,” he said, “because the wound keeps opening up over and over again.”
