EXCLUSIVE: Scott’s shooting was 9th involving North Charleston police since 2011

Walter Scott’s shooting was the ninth involving North Charleston police since 2011, according to SLED records and media reports.

State Law Enforcement Division records examined by The State newspaper show seven officer-involved shootings in those 51 months. An additional shooting that was not part of SLED’s records involved the wounding of an officer.

Last weekend’s shooting death of Scott, an unarmed African-American, by officer Michael Slager, who is white, brings the total to nine.

The shootings have happened at a rate of about two per year, so if they might be considered infrequent in the state’s third-largest city, they are not rare.

Police in the nine incidents were responding to calls involving attempted murder, armed robbery, a domestic disturbance, a stolen vehicle, a man with a gun and two traffic stops, one of which involved Scott.

Racial data was known for the officers only in the most recent four shootings. SLED’s investigative files and other internal records of police shootings do not always include the race of the officers.

In the four most recent shootings, during 2014 and the first four months of this year, four white officers fired at four black suspects. One civilian, Scott, was killed and one civilian injured. In two cases, no one was wounded, according to the SLED records.

Scott, 50, was shot in the back five times while while fleeing from Patrolman 1st Class Slager, according to autopsy results.

Slager, 33, has been fired and charged with murder in the April 4 shooting.

SLED investigates most officer-involved shootings in South Carolina by invitation of the local police agencies. But no state laws require local agencies to report police shootings, nor do they mandate what sort of details should be collected about each shooting.

In the 2011 and 2012 officer-involved shooting incidents in North Charleston, one suspect was killed and one suspect was injured, according to SLED records.

In one of the 2011 incidents, a SLED report said that North Charleston police officer Hampton Jenkins shot and killed Cody Adams after authorities were called to a trailer park. When the officers arrived, Adams, 63, a black military veteran, was waving the gun back and forth at them. Adams aimed at Jenkins, ignoring commands that Adams drop the gun. Jenkins fired once, striking Adams around his belly. Adams later died at a local hospital.

In a 2012 incident, a man who was injured by an officer’s gun was described in media reports as Kenneth Lamont Brown. Brown took a woman hostage, threatened to shoot officers and when police arrived on the scene, pointed a gun at them, media outlets reported. An officer shot Brown in the hand, knocking him out of action. He has not yet been sentenced.

In another 2012 incident, North Charleston officer David Winslette was shot and wounded while responding to a reported theft at a house, media outlets reported. One bullet struck the officer’s bullet-resistant vest and another his knee, but his injuries were non-life-threatening. The suspect, Tim Johnson, was later sentenced to 20 years in prison on a charge of attempted murder.

No North Charleston police shootings took place in 2013, according to SLED data.

North Charleston’s police force doesn’t reflect the community’s diversity.

Of the department’s 324 officers, 60 – or about 18 percent – are black, according to statistics provided by that department. The department has 256 white officers, accounting for about 79 percent of the force. Eight Hispanic officers account for the remaining 3 percent. By comparison, U.S. Census statistics from 2010 show about 47 percent of the city’s 98,000 residents are black.

Census numbers show that North Charleston saw its black population go from 25.5 percent in 1980 to 49.4 percent in 2000.

On Friday, Feidin Santana – the 23-year-old barber who took the video of Slager shooting Scott – met with SLED investigators, said Rep. Todd Rutherford, D-Richland, the Columbia lawyer who is representing Santana.

Santana, the only known civilian eyewitness to the shooting, is expected to be a key witness for the prosecution in any trial, Rutherford said.

Meanwhile, Slager’s lawyer, Andy Savage of Charleston, released a statement Friday in which he said Slager’s family asked him to assist the former officer after his previous lawyer bowed out.

“Previous counsel was provided to Mr. Slager by the Southern States Police Benevolent Association pursuant to Mr. Slager’s membership and the member benefits ostensibly offered by that organization (union),” Savage’s statement said.

“We have confirmed that no investigation was undertaken by Mr. Slager’s previous counsel or the PBA, and we have been advised that the PBA is no longer involved,” the statement said.

Other attorneys across South Carolina have volunteered to help, Savage said, and he will be announcing other members of the defense team at a later date.

Police across South Carolina remain shaken by Scott’s shooting.

“It’s like a kick in the stomach,” Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said Friday. “For cops, for good cops, it sickens us to see something like this, that one of us in the law enforcement profession has done this – committed a crime like this. It’s a kick in the gut to every one of us who wear the uniform or carry the badge.”

Slager’s prompt arrest on murder charges “has helped a lot,” Lott said.

DEVELOPMENTS FRIDAY

A PREVIOUS CHARGE. Walter Scott, shot and killed by a North Charleston police officer April 4, was jailed in 1987 on a charge of assault and battery, according to a report the Charleston County Sheriff’s Department released Friday.

The report indicates deputies responded to a call about a fight between Scott and another man. The report says that when deputies told the two to break it up, Scott began shouting obscenities at the other man as well as a deputy before shoving the deputy.

The report said that Scott suffered a cut and was treated at a local hospital before being transported to the jail. The disposition of the case was not immediately known.

ANOTHER EXCESSIVE-FORCE COMPLAINT. Another excessive-force complaint, as well as a lawsuit, has been filed against Michael Slager stemming from his time on the North Charleston Police Department.

Slager, 33, who is white, was fired this week after being charged with murder in the shooting death of Scott, 50, that was captured in a dramatic video.

Two years ago, a man said Slager used his stun gun against him without reason. On Friday, a Charleston County man came forward alleging that Slager did the same thing to him during a traffic stop last year.

Justin Wilson’s suit says that when he was pulled over by police Aug. 24, he produced a valid Georgia driver’s license but was placed under arrest for having a suspended South Carolina license.

The suit alleges that Wilson was pulled from his vehicle, forced to the ground and then, although he was cooperating with authorities, Slager shot him with his Taser.

Wilson’s lawyer said he would release a statement next week.

SHARPTON IN TOWN. The Rev. Al Sharpton plans to be in North Charleston this weekend to preach at an area church.

Sharpton said his message to the congregation of the Charity Missionary Baptist Church on Sunday will be that people pursue justice “in a peaceful, legal way.”

Anthony Scott, a brother of the shooting victim, said a representative of Sharpton’s National Action Network has been working with family since the shooting.

Sharpton said he will not attend Saturday’s funeral because of a scheduling conflict. He said he plans to meet privately with members of the Scott family and attend a vigil at the site where Scott was shot.

OFFICER’S MOTHER SPEAKS. The mother of the North Charleston police officer charged with murder says she’s grieving for both her family and the family of the victim.

Karen Sharpe, mother of officer Michael Thomas Slager, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” that she knows there are changes for both families. “It will never be the same again, and that’s the part that bothers me,” she said, fighting back tears.

She said that her son loved being a police officer and that she couldn’t imagine him shooting Scott. “It’s just not like him. That’s just not his character. … He has a little baby on the way, due next month.”

She said she has been avoiding news accounts of the incident and hasn’t watched the dramatic bystander video that helped lead to her son’s arrest.

 

The Associated Press

This story was originally published April 10, 2015 at 10:32 PM with the headline "EXCLUSIVE: Scott’s shooting was 9th involving North Charleston police since 2011."