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Ex-officer Michael Slager pleads guilty in shooting death of Walter Scott In a deal with federal prosecutors, former South Carolina police officer Michael Slager pleaded guilty Tuesday to one charge of deprivation of rights under color of law in the shooting death of Walter Scott. In exchange for his plea in US District Court in South Carolina, Slager will not face state murder charges. [Original story, published at 2:23 p.m. ET] Michael Slager, the former South Carolina police officer who fatally shot a man in the back, will plead guilty to a federal charge of using excessive force, his attorney...

The white ex-South Carolina cop who shot an unarmed black man in the back as a passerby videotaped the stunning death received a 20-year federal prison term Thursday. Former North Charleston officer Michael Slager was sentenced by U.S. District Judge David Norton, who earlier ruled the cop’s shooting of Walter Scott during a traffic stop was second-degree murder. “This is a tragedy that shouldn’t have happened,” said Norton, who could have thrown the disgraced law enforcer behind bars for 24 years. Slager, 36, was also declared guilty of obstruction of justice for the bogus version of the April 2015 shooting...

A grand jury indicted Slager in 2015, but a judge ultimately declared a mistrial in December 2016 after a jury remained deadlocked. The panel was made up of 11 white jurors and one black juror. While that case was ongoing, federal authorities pursued a parallel investigation against Slager on civil rights charges. Solicitor Scarlett Wilson had planned to bring a second case against Slager later this year, but those charges were dropped as part of his federal plea deal. ... During the sentencing hearing in downtown Charleston, the judge will determine if the shooting is voluntary manslaughter or murder. Prosecutors...

Michael Slager, the officer who faced murder and manslaughter charges for shooting an unarmed black man in the back, will face a re-trial after the jury deadlocked over his case on Monday — and experts say there's still a strong case against him. While eleven jurors backed convicting an officer for the shooting at one point, according to a note written by one of the jurors, a holdout juror said he felt he could not vote to convict the officer in "good conscience." Prosecutors swiftly announced they would re-try the case, which is a legal option after any jury deadlocks.

BREAKING NEWS - Mistrial declared in Michael Slager murder case

The city of North Charleston, South Carolina, agreed Thursday to pay $6.5 million to the family of Walter Scott, the unarmed African-American man who was shot in the back by a white police officer in April, settling a potential lawsuit after six months of negotiations. Scott, 50, died after he was shot April 4 as he was running away from former police Officer Michael Slager, who fired eight shots at Scott in a confrontation recorded on a bystander's video. He remains held without bond on a charge of murder.

In a court order issued Monday, South Carolina Judge Clifton Newman ruled that former North Charleston police officer Michael Slager will continue to be held without bond while he awaits trial on first degree murder charges in the March shooting of Walter Scott, a killing captured on cellphone video. “After careful consideration of all of the evidence presented and the nature and circumstances of the offense, the Court finds that the release of Defendant would constitute an unreasonable danger to the community,” Newman wrote. Attorneys for Slager and Scott’s family spent two days last week debating whether he should be...

In all the frenzy over the shocking massacre which took place last night in Charleston, South Carolina, what’s being missed is that there’s another huge shock on the way for that city, and for the entire country, if a certain way of analyzing of the murder case against former North Charleston police officer Michael Slager turns out to be correct. I’m not the only one who has said that Slager is being over-charged, and will most likely beat the murder rap. Others have also pointed out that although he was wrong in shooting the fleeing Walter Scott, and that the...

(CNN)Both sides in the case of Walter Scott described what happened Monday as a single step in a long march. A grand jury indicted former North Charleston, South Carolina, police officer Michael Slager on a murder charge in connection to the April shooting death.

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — A white former North Charleston police officer was indicted on a murder charge Monday in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man who was running away from the officer after a traffic stop. The shooting April 4 was captured on video by a bystander and showed officer Michael Slager firing eight times as 50-year-old Walter Scott ran away. The shooting rekindled an ongoing national debate about the treatment of black suspects at the hands of white officers

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCIV) -- Solicitor Scarlett Wilson on Monday announced that an indictment has been handed down by a state Grand Jury against former North Charleston police officer Michael Slager for murder. The indictment was filed and handed down on Monday, Wilson said. "The facts that were presented to us by SLED warranted a Grand Jury," she said. Wilson said Monday Slager faces 30 years to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The indictment against Slager is the only indictment presented to the Grand Jury, she said. She said they hope to hear from Judge Newman soon on...

The video of South Carolina police officer Michael Slager taking steady aim and repeatedly shooting the fleeing Walter Scott in the back is rather shocking and disturbing. It shows the horrible consequence of Slager completely following through on his decision to resort to deadly force when, after a foot chase and fierce physical fight, Scott looked to be turning the officer’s own taser against him. Some who have analyzed the incident and video closely know that the details are somewhat different than the authorities and media would have people know. http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2015/04/12/game-changer-or-paradigm-shift-walter-scott-shooting-enhanced-video-shows-officer-slager-with-taser-darts/comment-page-1/ The moment of decision looks to have happened so...

The horrific story of the unarmed Walter Scott’s death at the hands of Officer Michael Slager continues to reverberate. Aside from the incontrovertible evidence on the tape that the accused officer shot him in the back as if he were doing target practice, there has since emerged more tape of the traffic stop itself and audio of the officer speaking with his superiors on the phone raising even more questions about his state of mind at the time of the shooting. But as journalists have gone back and studied the officer’s record and found that he was previously investigated for...

Lawsuit alleges suspect wasn’t a threat when he was shot in the back Allegations of excessive force used on minorities are mounting against the South Carolina police officer recently caught on video fatally shooting unarmed suspect Walter Scott in the back. Julius Garnett Wilson alleges in a new lawsuit that he was tased by officer Michael Slager last August while lying face-down on the pavement.

In the very first media reports of the shooting by South Carolina officer Michael Slager of Walter Scott the North Charleston police were quoted as follows (Saturday April 4th): FIRST MEDIA 4/4/15 […] Police in a matter of hours declared the occurrence at the corner of Remount and Craig roads a traffic stop gone wrong, alleging the dead man fought with an officer over his Taser before deadly force was employed. […] A statement released by North Charleston police spokesman Spencer Pryor said a man ran on foot from the traffic stop and an officer deployed his department-issued Taser in...

Unlike many people you have heard opine on the Walter Scott shooting, I have been in SlagerÂ’s shoes. A ribbon with the image of Walter Scott is affixed to the fence with a message at the scene where Scott was fatally shot by a police officer after he fled a traffic stop, Sunday, April 12, 2015, in North Charleston, S.C. The officer, Michael Thomas Slager, has been fired and charged with murder. (AP Photo/David Goldman) Regular readers of these columns [1] know that I often use this space to explain and defend the actions of police officers who I feel...

On the first day we saw the North Charleston, South Carolina, shooting video of Walter Scott by Officer Michael Slager we were as shocked as everyone. However, as research now indicates there is much more to the story. What we cover here in the latest update might just change the entire way the story continues…

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — In stories April 7 and 8 about the shooting of an unarmed black man by a white police officer, The Associated Press erroneously reported that Walter Scott was honorably discharged from the Coast Guard. Scott was granted a lesser discharge, known as a general discharge under honorable conditions, because of a drug-related incident.

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...

No more Fergusons, please. Walter Scott’s family have asked Al Sharpton not to attend the funeral, it is claimed.The New York-based Reverend became a prominent voice in the wake of Michael Brown’s shooting at the hands of a white police officer in Ferguson last August.But as the nation’s attention turns to South Carolina and footage showing Officer Michael Slager shooting dead father-of-four Walter Scott, his parents and brothers have made plain that they do not want the same treatment.According to the New York Daily News, the family told Rev Sharpton to ‘keep away’ from the relatives-only memorial service.A source...