Michael Slager Tasered an Unarmed Black Man Before Walter Scott
Walter Scott was not the first unarmed black man to suffer the violence of North Charleston Police Officer Michael Slager, according to documents obtained by the Associated Press. In 2013, Slager allegedly pulled a man from his home and Tasered him multiple times, despite that man being unarmed and having committed no crime.
Slager arrived at the home of Mario Givens before dawn, banging on the door, according to an excessive force complaint and incident report, corroborated with interviews by the AP. Slager was looking for Mario's brother, Matthew Givens, who had allegedly entered his ex-girlfriend's bedroom uninvited and fled when she called the police. Mario Givens answered the door and was Tasered and pulled from the house shortly thereafter:
"Come outside or I'll tase you," he quoted the officer as saying, adding: "I didn't want that to happen to me, so I raised my arms over my head, and when I did, he tased me in my stomach anyway."
Givens said the pain from the stun gun was so intense that he dropped to the floor and began calling for his mother, who also was in the home. At that point, he said another police officer came into the house and they dragged him outside and threw him to the ground. He was handcuffed and put in a squad car.
Maleah Kiara Brown, Matthew Givens' ex-girlfriend, accompanied the officers to the Givens' home. She told the AP that she'd told them what Matthew looked like, and that Mario "looked nothing like the description I gave the officers." Matthew Givens is 5'5", and Mario stands "well over six feet," according to the AP. According to Brown, Slager Tasered Mario once more after he'd thrown him on the dirt. "[Slager] was cocky. It looked like he wanted to hurt him," she said.
Mario Givens was charged with resisting arrest, but those charges were dropped. An internal investigation sparked after Givens filed a complaint found Slager not guilty of wrongdoing.
The incident report—Slager's official account of the struggle—differs significantly, arguing that Mario and Matthew looked "just alike" and that he was forced to use the Taser because Givens struggled with him. The report also contains a witness statement from Brown—which Brown denies giving.
Slager's recounting bears similarities to his incident report on Walter Scott, which claimed that Scott took Slager's Taser during a scuffle, and that Slager fired his weapon because he "felt threatened." The video, of course, told a different story.
