Man who captured fatal South Carolina police shooting speaks out

(Image credit: Twitter.com/LesterHoltNBC)

published 8 April 2015

The bystander who used his phone to film the shooting of Walter Scott on Saturday told NBC News he began recording after hearing a Taser being deployed, and knew right away that he "had something on my hands."

Feidin Santana said he saw Scott and Officer Michael Slager, who was fired from the North Charleston, South Carolina, police department on Wednesday, struggle before the shooting, but Slager had control of the situation before he fired eight times. "Scott was trying just to get away from the Taser," Santana told Lester Holt. "As you can see in the video, the police officer just shot him in the back."

Santana said when he gave the video to Scott's family, "they were very emotional." He said the situation is not something a person can "feel happy about," as Slager, who was arrested and charged with murder on Tuesday, and Scott both have families affected by what happened. "I think...he [the officer] made a bad decision, and you pay for your decisions in this life," he added. "Mr. Scott didn't deserve this, and there were other ways that can be used to get him arrested, and that wasn't the proper way to do that."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.