Slain man's family, lawyer praise charges against ex-officer

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — As federal charges were filed against a white former South Carolina police officer who already faced a state murder charge in the shooting death of unarmed black motorist Walter Scott, Scott's lawyer and family praised the federal prosecutors for pressing the case.

A bystander's cellphone video captured images of Slager, then a North Charleston police officer, firing eight times as Scott ran from a traffic stop in April 2015.

The federal indictment charges that Slager, while acting as a law officer, deprived Scott of his civil rights.

The civil rights charge can carry the death penalty, because Scott lost his life, but Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Klumb said the government is seeking a maximum of life because there are no aggravating circumstances in the case.

Slager, who was fired from the police force after the incident, was held in solitary confinement until January, when he was released on half a million dollars bail and put under house arrest.

Prosecutors have asked for the trial to be moved up to August or back to May 2017 to give Solicitor Scarlett Wilson time to prepare for another trial, that of Dylann Roof who's charged with shooting nine people to death at a black church in Charleston last summer.