The passenger riding with Walter Scott before the deadly traffic stop involving Officer Michael Slager said his “dear friend … didn’t deserve to die” as new video released shows Slager using his stun gun on a different unarmed black man during a 2014 traffic stop.
Pierre D. Fulton has been identified as the man riding shotgun April 4 when Scott, 50, was pulled over in North Charleston, S.C., for having a broken taillight.
Scott bolted from the scene and was shot five times - four times in the back and once in the ear - by a pursuing Slager.
The 33-year-old officer, now charged with murder, told police higher ups that there’d been a struggle over his Taser, a non-lethal weapon used by law enforcement officers nationwide.
“Walter was a dear friend, and I miss him every day,” Fulton said in a statement, his only planned public comments, released by attorney Mark A. Peper. “Over the past five years, he helped me become a better man and showed me the value of hard work. I’ll never know why he ran, but I know he didn’t deserve to die.”
The scrutiny of Slager prompted 35-year-old Julius Wilson to file a lawsuit Friday against North Charleston, the police department and the disgraced officer alleging excessive force during an Aug. 25, 2014 traffic stop.
“In my lifetime, I have witnessed violent acts by police officers,” Wilson told The Post and Courier during a news conference Monday. “Without proof of such acts, the word of police officers is always taken over the word of the victims forced to endure their violent acts.”
Wilson released police dash camera video showing two officers, including Slager, work to wrench Wilson, a felon, from a car after he was stopped and arrested for driving with a suspended license.
Wilson refuses to exit the car as both cops repeatedly as him to get out and eventually resort to pulling him out.
Once they get him out, a third officer arrives and helps subdue Wilson, who is lying on his stomach on the ground as the officers work to cuff him. That’s when Slager, standing above the suspect with his stun gun drawn, yells out, “Back up, I’m going to tase! Back up I’m going to tase!” before someone yells “taser, taser, taser!” and Slager fires the weapon.
“Oh s---!” Wilson exclaims as his body goes slack and officers cuff and escort him to the patrol car.
Wilson had been pulled over for a broken taillight - the same reason Scott was stopped almost a year later. After the arrest, he was charged with resisting arrest, driving under suspension and unlawful equipment.
He pleaded guilty to resisting, but was later cleared of driving with a suspended license.
Wilson claims he was cooperating when Slager used his Taser.
“With all the media coverage in Mr. Scott’s shooting,” Wilson’s attorney, John Gentry III, said at Monday’s news conference, “the practices and procedures of use of force by police across the country is being brought into question.”
It’s not the first time Slager has been accused of using his Taser in an excessive or unnecessary manner. Mario Givens, 33, said he filed an excessive-force complaint against the former officer in 2013 after the cop barged into his North Charleston home and Tasered him in the stomach.
