White SC officer charged with murder in black man's death

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — Dramatic video that shows a white South Carolina police officer shooting a fleeing black man after a traffic stop has led authorities to file a murder charge against the officer amid public outrage over a series of deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of law enforcement agents.

Protests were planned today in North Charleston, led by a group formed after the fatal shooting of another black man in Ferguson, Mo.

The video, provided to the dead man's family and lawyer by an unidentified person who shot the footage, shows North Charleston Patrolman Michael Thomas Slager firing eight shots at the back of Walter Lamer Scott as he runs away. The 50-year-old man falls after the eighth shot, fired after a brief pause.

Scott's parents appeared separately on TV shows this morning, a day after the officer was charged.

Walter Scott Sr. told the NBC "Today Show" his son may have run because he owed child support and didn't want to go back to jail.

Scott Sr. said that in the video, the officer "looked like he was trying to kill a deer running through the woods."

Judy Scott called the video "the most horrible thing I've ever seen."

"I almost couldn't look at it to see my son running defenselessly, being shot. It just tore my heart to pieces," she said on ABC's "Good Morning America."