‘I thought about erasing the video’, says bystander who filmed Charleston cop shooting at black man

A man who recorded video of a white police officer apparently gunning down a black man said he knew right away the profound significance of the chilling footage he had recorded. The now widely-distributed video of South Carolina officer Michael Slager shooting Walter Scott, 50, repeatedly in the back was recorded by 23-year-old Feidin Santana, who was on his way to work when he saw the two men and heard a stun gun being used. The video sparked public outcry and led to a murder charge against the policeman after it challenged the officer’s account of the shooting that took place in the coastal city of North Charleston. “As you can see in the video, the police officer just shot him in the back,” said Santana, who said he started filming with his cellphone after he saw Scott and Slager tussle. Authorities have said the scuffle began with a traffic stop, when Scott was pulled over for having a broken tail light on his car. “Before I started recording [the video], they were down on the floor. I remember the police [officer] had control of the situation,” Santana said in an interview with NBC television. “He had control of Scott. And Scott was trying just to get away from the Taser [stun gun]. But like I said, he never used the Taser against the cop,” Santana said. “I knew right away, I had something on my hands,” he told NBC television. WARNING: Disturbing images. Bystander's footage of the North Charleston shooting. The video shows wires from the stun gun extending from Scott’s body, implying that the victim rather than the police officer had been hit as the two men scuffled. As Scott, who was heavy-set, tries to flee, Slager draws his handgun and shoots eight times towards his back. When Scott falls facedown on the grass, Slager walks towards him and then handcuffs the dying man. Slager appears to pick up a device that had fallen during the altercation and drop it by Scott’s body. Scott was hit by five bullets – three times in the back, once in the upper buttocks and once in the ear, said family lawyer Chris Stewart, quoting the coroner who examined Scott’s body, according to the The New York Times. Santana said that after filming the incident, he immediately became fearful of his own safety. “I won’t deny I knew the magnitude of this, and I even thought about erasing the video,” he said in a separate interview with MSNBC television. “I felt that my life with this information might be in some danger. I thought about erasing the video and getting out of the community, leaving North Charleston,” he said. After initial police reports claimed Scott had taken Slager’s stun gun, Santana’s video was released to The New York Times and published on Tuesday. The 33-year-old policeman Slager was charged with murder the same day the video was released and could face a sentence of up to life in prison or the death penalty. He was fired from the police force on Wednesday after being charged with murder and being booked into jail. “It’s not something that no one can feel happy about. He has his family, Mr Scott also has his family,” Santana told NBC. “But I think, you know, [the officer] made a bad decision, and you pay for your decisions in this life.” “Mr Scott didn’t deserve this,” he continued. “And there were other ways that can be used to get him arrested. And that wasn’t the proper way to do that.” The shooting is America’s latest high-profile police killing of a black man. A string of such shootings of unarmed victims, where officers are rarely charged, have sparked protests around the country with demonstrators alleging racism in the nation’s police forces. Scott’s father, also named Walter, said the family was devastated by his son’s death, but was grateful for the video evidence. “The way he was shooting that gun, it looked like he was trying to kill a deer or something running through the woods. I don’t know whether it was racial or something wrong with his head or what,” the father told NBC’s Today Show. “I thank God they had the video. God has my back. When I saw it, my heart was broken. I said, ‘It can’t be.’ I saw it. I couldn’t take it anymore.” They remembered Scott as a Dallas Cowboys football fan and loving father of four. The US Justice Department released a statement saying it would “take appropriate action” over the shooting. North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey said the police department would buy body cameras for officers to wear to help investigate shootings. The killing of unarmed black teen Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, last August was a catalyst for a recent surge in protests and a renewed debate on racism and police tactics. However, a jury chose not to indict the police officer for the shooting of Brown. Since then, other killings by police have prompted protests in cities from coast to coast.