Warning: video contains graphic violence

Source: The Post and Courier/Vimeo

A WHITE SOUTH Carolina police officer has been charged with murder after shooting dead a black motorist following a traffic stop.

North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey told a hastily called news conference that city Patrolman Michael Thomas Slager was arrested and charged this evening after a video of Saturday’s shooting emerged.

Authorities say the victim, 50-year-old Walter Lamer Scott of Charleston, was shot after the officer already hit him with a stun gun.

Officer Michael Slager's prison mugshot.

Slager’s lawyer had released a statement on Monday saying the officer felt threatened and that the motorist was trying to grab the officer’s stun gun.

However, footage posted online by the New York Times and local newspaper The Post and Courier shows Slager shooting at Scott eight times, before appearing to drop his taser next to the man’s lifeless body.

He was arrested by officers of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division earlier this evening.

“When you’re wrong, you’re wrong,” Mayor Summey said.

When you make a bad decision, don’t care if you’re behind the shield or a citizen on the street, you have to live with that decision. [sic]

Contains reporting by Associated Press.

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