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NORTH CHARLESTON, SC (WCSC) - Officials with the National Bar Association are calling for the immediate arrest and indictment of a North Charleston police officer who responded to the shooting of Walter Scott. Officer Clarence Habersham was the officer on scene after Michael Slager shot and killed Scott. According to the group, Habersham filed an incomplete police report on the shooting of Walter Scott and left "material facts out of his report." Habersham gave the following narrative in a North Charleston Police Department report that was released to the media:

Dashboard video shows a police officer making a routine traffic stop. Cellphone video shows the officer shooting the fleeing motorist in the back. What remains a mystery is what happened during the minutes in between that led the police officer to become a killer. The dash cam footage released by state police on Thursday showed North Charleston Officer Michael Thomas Slager pulling over black motorist Walter Scott for a broken brake light last weekend. Slager, who is white, has been charged with murder in Scott’s death. […] What’s missing is what happens from the time the two men run out...

KNBC reported that the man -- identified by authorities as Francis Pusok -- appeared to be kicked 17 times, punched 37 times and hit with a baton four times. Pusok was later hospitalized, KNBC reported, citing authorities. "The video surrounding this arrest is disturbing and I have ordered an internal investigation be conducted immediately," McMahon said in a statement. The ACLU of Southern California issued a statement Friday saying that it was "deeply troubled" by the images. "While we applaud Sheriff John McMahon's prompt decision to investigate the disturbing actions of his deputies, we believe more is needed," the organization...

Because some police officers will order people to turn off their cameras or will attempt to confiscate or destroy phones, it bears repeating: It is, in fact, perfectly legal to film police officers in the U.S. while they are on the job, in a public place, so long as you do not physically interfere with their ability to do their jobs. In an effort to protect that constitutional right, developers, in recent years, have been partnering with advocacy groups like the American Civil Liberties Union to develop smartphone apps aimed at making it easier for members of the public to...

FULL TITLE - Report: Capitol Police Chief Who’s Stonewalling Release of Harry Reid Injury Information Has Resigned Roll Call is reporting that “U.S. Capitol Police Chief Kim C. Dine has submitted a letter of resignation to the Capitol Police Board, multiple sources with direct knowledge of the situation have confirmed.”As Breitbart News reported earlier this week, Dine’s tenure as Capitol Police Chief has been troubled.Dine’s failure to release the Capitol Police event report of the New Year’s Day incident in which then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) sustained gruesome injuries is just the most recent controversy in which Dine...

Ron Hosko is the former head of the FBI's criminal investigative division. He now runs a legal defense fund for police officers. He's watched the video of Walter Scott being fatally shot by Michael Slager from beginning to end and says he's never seen anything like it. "Arguably what he should be doing, before pulling out his gun is chasing him, right? Foot pursuit. Happens every day," Hosko said. "If he's unarmed, and presumably he is from the background, chase him. Cops chase every day. Call for backup. Have others come help chase." But did Scott pose a threat based...

Disturbing video filmed on Thursday April 9, 2015 by local news KNBC Channel 4 in Los Angeles captures a group of San Bernardino County sheriffs deputies beating a man after he had clearly surrendered. The man's name is Francis Pusok and he led police on a horseback pursuit. He clearly has his hands spread on the ground, and you can even see one of the cops kick him right in the groin, before proceeding on a full assault on the man.

Authorities in South Carolina have released dash cam video in connection with the fatal shooting of Walter Scott, but the footage does not show the actual shooting. Video from the patrol car of North Charleston's Michael Slager shows an initial traffic stop and early interactions between the officer and Scott. Slager approaches Scott's vehicle. The two men speak. Scott tells the officer he does not have insurance and is in the process of purchasing the vehicle. Slager then returns to his patrol car. Scott exits his vehicle, briefly, and Slager tells him to stay in the car. Scott then gets...

San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon ordered an immediate internal investigation Thursday into what he called "disturbing" video showing an arrest by deputies after a horse pursuit that was caught on camera by NewsChopper4. Deputies appeared to use Tasers to stun a man and then beat him after the pursuit in San Bernardino County Thursday afternoon. Aerial footage captured by NewsChopper4 showed the man falling off the horse, and then being stunned with a Taser by a sheriff's deputy. The man then appeared to fall to the ground with his arms outstretched. Two deputies immediately descended on him and began...

In a video uploaded to Facebook on Wednesday, Michael Cates filmed a disturbing interaction between police and retired truck driver, Russel Ayers. The recording shows police threatening Ayers with incarceration after he refused to apologize to an officer, after calling him a......bad word...Caution, Harsh language!

A New York Police Department detective has been suspended after a Brooklyn deli owner uncovered security camera footage that appears to show the officer pocketing nearly $3,000 in cash during a raid earlier this month, police said.The detective, Ian Cyrus, 49 years old, has been suspended pending an internal affairs investigation into the April 3 incident, NYPD spokesman Stephen Davis said Thursday.“That video combined with an allegation of theft is enough to warrant an investigation,” Mr. Davis said. “It’s good enough to support taking appropriate action at the time. The video is indicative of activity that requires more investigation.”Detective Cyrus...

State law-enforcement authorities in South Carolina have filed murder charges against Michael Slager, the North Charleston police officer who killed 50-year-old Walter Scott by shooting him several times, mostly in the back as Scott was fleeing. Slager is currently being held without bail, has been fired by the police department, and faces a potential death sentence, or a term of 30 years to life in prison, if convicted. That, moreover, is just on a murder charge. There appears to be considerable evidence that Slager also obstructed justice. Officials are investigating whether he moved his Taser from the scene of an...

What began as a trickle has become a stream that could become a cleansing torrent. Criticisms of the overcriminalization of American life might catalyze an appreciation of the toll the administrative state is taking on the criminal-justice system, and liberty generally. In 2007, professor Tim Wu of Columbia Law School recounted a game played by some prosecutors. One would name a famous person — “say, Mother Teresa or John Lennon” — and other prosecutors would try to imagine “a plausible crime for which to indict him or her,” usually a felony plucked from “the incredibly broad yet obscure crimes that...

How many Americans die in fatal encounters with police officers? In the absence of political will and bureaucratic ability, Americans are rising up to count for themselves. The best findings so far — 3.15 citizens each day; 22 per week; 96 a month — adding up to an average of 1,150 dead Americans a year, according to data painstakingly compiled by the website fatalencounters.org. Founder D. Brian Burghart, who launched the not-for-profit Fatal Encounters project in February 2014, stands by those findings as “better than 95 per cent accurate.” “What we don’t know yet are the trends going back to...

In hundreds of police departments across the country, the percentage of whites on the force is more than 30 percentage points higher than in the communities they serve, according to an analysis of a government survey of police departments. Minorities make up a quarter of police forces, according to the 2007 survey, the most recent comprehensive data available. Experts say that diversity in the police force increases a department’s credibility with its community. “Even if police officers of whatever race enforce the law in relatively the same way, there is a huge image problem with a department that is so...

The unidentified bystander whose cellphone video of a police shooting in South Carolina put an officer in jail on a murder charge has come forward and explained why he started recording the crime scene. Feidin Santana told NBC Wednesday that he was walking to work and approached the scene because he noticed officer Michael Slager controlling Walter Scott on the ground. He began recording when he heard the sound of a Taser. He says “Mr. Scott was trying just to get away from the Taser.”

The video appears to be damning: a white police officer fatally shooting a black man in the back as he ran away. The shooting of Walter Scott by North Charleston, S.C., police Officer Thomas Stager has generated national outrage. Stager has been fired and charged with murder. Legal and police tactics experts said the video would be powerful evidence in the criminal case. But they say it still leaves Stager’s defense with options. One likely defense focus will be what is not on the video. The interaction between Scott and Stager before the shooting is not seen, nor is the...

The video is so damning that authorities promptly charged a South Carolina officer with murder. In the footage, an African-American man, apparently unarmed, is seen running away from the officer. He gets several yards away before the officer aims his gun toward his back. Eight shots later, the man falls to the ground. By that point, he appears to be at least 25 feet from the officer.

North Charleston, S.C. — A white police officer in South Carolina is charged with murder after a bystander recorded video of him shooting and killing an apparently unarmed black man in the back as he ran way from the scene of a traffic stop. The New York Times posted the video Tuesday. It is disturbing. (Scroll down to see video.) Officer Michael T. Slager, 33, claimed he feared for his life because the man took a stun gun during a scuffle Saturday, but the video does not confirm that. The video shows Slager firing eight times and shooting Walter L....

A North Charleston police officer was arrested on a murder charge and the FBI opened a civil rights investigation Tuesday after video surfaced of the lawman shooting eight times at 50-year-old Walter Scott as he ran away. Scott died Saturday after Patrolman 1st Class Michael Slager, 33, shot him in the back. The video footage, which The Post and Courier obtained Tuesday from a source who asked to remain anonymous, shows the end of the confrontation between the two on