Father of S.C. man slain by police: 'My heart was broken'
The South Carolina police officer who shot to death an unarmed black man "looked like he was trying to kill a deer running through the woods," the victim's father said Wednesday in an interview with NBC.
"When I saw it, I fell to my feet and my heart was broken," Walter Scott Sr. said of a video of the incident that surfaced one day prior.
Though the officer, Michael Slager, initially claimed he killed Walter Scott during a scuffle for the officer's Taser, the video evidence told a different story. Soon after the video emerged on Tuesday, Slager was charged with murder.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Without the video evidence, the true story "would have never come to light," Scott Sr. said. "They would have swept it under the rug, like they did with many others."
Your weekly digest of stories about entertainment and leisure, delivered every Friday
Jon Terbush is an associate editor at TheWeek.com covering politics, sports, and other things he finds interesting. He has previously written for Talking Points Memo, Raw Story, and Business Insider.