More Come Forward to Accuse North Charleston Police and Michael Slager of Abuse
Lawsuit over use of Taser on arrested, submissive man.
Another resident of North Charleston, South Carolina, is accusing Officer Michael Slager of abusive police behavior. This one survived, unlike Walter Scott, and is suing Slager, the city, and the police department over an incident captured on police dashcam that appears to show Slager using a Taser on a man while the man is face-down on the pavement after being arrested.
It may be the least of Slager's worries, given that he's been charged with murder for Scott's death, also caught on video. But Julius Wilson claims he was Tased by police after they had stopped him over a broken taillight and arrested him, yanking him out of his car because he kept demanding they explain why they were arresting him. Then once they had him submissive on the street, Slager used his Taser on him.
The Guardian has the dashcam video and the lawsuit posted here. The alleged stunning is not actually visible on the video (the back of an officer blocks much of the view of Wilson). Wilson can be heard reacting to the pain at 2:50 in the video. Slager is on the other side of Wilson, almost completely concealed from the dash cam. There's a lot of talking at once and it's not clear what everybody is saying. According to the lawsuit, Wilson was charged with driving with a suspended South Carolina license, but Wilson had a valid Georgia's driver's license.
In other news related to Slager's behavior, the videotaped shooting of Scott has prompted former New York Police Department Commissioner Ray Kelly to come around on body cameras. He was previously a skeptic, but on This Week on NBC, he said he has come around:
We have to assume that this officer would not act the way he did if in fact he had a body camera that was recording. I think it is a game-changer. What you'll see is a movement now by many more police departments to go to cameras. There are issues with it, there are problems with it, but this trumps all those issues.