Minister: Shooting was act of racist cop

Associated Press

SUMMERVILLE, S.C.

The death of a black man shot in the back while fleeing a white police officer was the act of a racist cop, a minister told hundreds who gathered Saturday for the funeral of Walter Scott.

“All of us have seen the video,” the Rev. George Hamilton, the minister at W.O.R.D. Ministries Christian Center, told an overflow congregation. “There is no doubt in my mind, and I feel that Walter’s death was motivated by racial prejudice.” Authorities have not said whether race was a factor in the shooting.

Scott was a father of four and a Coast Guard veteran whose death sparked outrage as another instance of a white law officer fatally shooting an unarmed black man under questionable circumstances. The shooting last weekend in North Charleston was captured on a dramatic cellphone camera video by a man who was walking past.

About 450 people including U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., and U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., the two black members of South Carolina’s congressional delegation, gathered in the sanctuary of the church where Scott had worshipped.

About 200 more people waited outside beneath the portico of the church or under umbrellas in the rain because the sanctuary had reached capacity.

Hamilton called Michael Slager — the officer involved in the shooting and who has been charged with murder and fired — a disgrace to the Charleston Police Department.

“This particular cop was a racist. You don’t Tase a man and then shoot,” the minister said. But he added: “We will not indict the entire law-enforcement community for the act of one racist.”

Hamilton said that the Scott family could take comfort in the fact that Slager was captured on the video, was charged and will face justice.

Scott was remembered as a gentle soul and a born-again Christian. “He was not perfect,” the minister said, adding that nobody is.

The two-hour service included spirituals and remembrances of the 50-year-old Scott.

Those who waited outside were able to enter at the end of the service and file by Scott’s open casket covered in an American flag and surrounded with sprays of flowers.