Walter Scott shooting: Video shows police officer fatally shoot black man

The video comes in the wake of incidents in Ferguson and New York

A screengrab from the video

This is the moment a white policeman shot dead an apparently unarmed black man, moments after the man tried to run away from the officer in North Charleston, South Carolina.

The video was captured by a passerby on their mobile phone as they saw 50-year-old Walter Scott shot by police officer Michael Slager.

In the short video Mr Scott can be seen running away from the policeman before Slager fires several shots at his back and he falls to the ground.

The footage seems to contradict the events as reportedly contained in the police report given by Slager, according to The New York Times.

The 33-year-old said that he had feared for his life after his stun gun was taken by Scott during a “scuffle” on Saturday morning. Slager has now been charged with the murder of Scott.

The incident comes in the wake of the shooting of teenager Michael Brown by police in Ferguson, Missouri last year and Eric Garner in New York, who died after being put in chokehold by Officer Daniel Pantaleo.