I agree there is more to this story.
But the video speaks for itself.
Shoot an unarmed man in the back when he was running away?
Going to be a tough sell.
I think there was much more to this encounter than is shown on this video, which started at the end of two separate physical struggles.
There was a long (reportedly 2 minutes) fight at the entrance to the park, and there is reported to be an eyewitness to that fight, but it isn’t shown on the video we have seen.
There is some speculation that this video has been edited, but I am not qualified to analyze whether that is true.
When I slow down the video, and go frame by frame, the most critical point is right at the start of the video, in frame 16 and 17.
In frame 16, Slater is holding Scott with his left hand grabbing Scott’s right arm. Scott’s left arm is hidden by his body, which is sideways to Slager, and at the same time Slater is pulling his gun from the holster on his right side with his right arm.
In frame 17, a blink later, we see Scott pulling away from Slater as the “item” gets tossed behind Slager. I can’t see the toss of the item by Slager by his left arm (his weapon was in his right), so conclude that Scott must have thrown it with his left arm.
But others may not have taken the time to look at that very early encounter, focusing only on the shooting. The question to me is what caused Slager to shoot? If he thought Scott still had the taser, then he may have felt imminent threat.
So you suggest that, instead of shooting, Slager should have again given foot chase, wound up wrestling on the ground in close combat with him again, and this time risk Scott taking his gun instead of the taser he took the first time and deployed against the cop. Scott eliminated that as a possibility when he attacked the cop with his own weapon the first time. He also proved that he was extremely dangerous and desperate and posed a risk to other officers coming into the scene or innocent bystanders (potential hostages).
Personally, and based on the little I know about this whole thing, I still don't think they cop was was just being overly careless or anything else on purpose. It was likely one of those times when those split second decisions were wrong and are just not something you can take back. I would guess he is likely more torn up about this than anyone else. Hell, he killed a guy. That's gotta be a damned hard pill to swallow. But hey, who knows. He could also be "one of them". To assume anything is kindof reckless of me, I guess I just want to believe the guy is just a normal dood who messed up real bad. But he'll get no such benefit from the media