Feidin Santana, the witness whose video led to murder charges against a South Carolina police officer, spoke out on Wednesday for the first time since the incident and said that he was so scared he thought about deleting his recording.
“I even thought about erasing the video,” he said during an interview on MSNBC with Craig Melvin. “I felt that my life, with this information, might be in danger.”
Santana told Melvin that he originally approached the police with the video of the shooting, but ultimately decided to hand the footage over to the victim’s family.
Santana said he saw the police report after the incident, and said he didn’t think the police portrayed the shooting accurately, prompting him to come forward with the footage.
North Charleston, S.C., police officer Michael Thomas Slager was charged with murder on Tuesday after Santana’s video was released. The video appears to show Slager shooting unarmed black man Walter Scott in the back as the man ran away. According to police, Slager said that he felt threatened by Scott and that Scott had tried to grab his stun gun.
Santana explained that he saw Slager chasing Scott on his way to work. Santana said he saw Slager used his stun gun on Scott, but did not record that on his phone.
He also said that he did not see Slager perform CPR on Scott. North Charleston police were not positive whether Slager or another police officer tried to perform CPR on Scott after he was shot.
During an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt, Santana said he thought Slager “made a bad decision.”
“Mr. Scott didn’t deserve this,” Santana said.
Watch the interview with Melvin via MSNBC:
I would suggest he changes his name because from now on he will forever be a target of police officers.
“I even thought about erasing the video,” he said during an interview on MSNBC with Craig Melvin. "I felt that my life, with this information, might be in danger.”
He was right to think that. He might’ve been shot while making that video.
I’d have ran like the wind and for all intents and purposes I’m white.
I think it was on ABC.com a poster asked why Santana didn’t shout out so the officer could know he was seeing. When I read the comment I thought, what a dumb fuck. Had this young man brought attention to himself he’d most likely be dead.
I would suggest he is a smart man. He had just videoed a white cop murdering a black man. He also videoed the cop planting evidence in front of a second cop who had arrived on the scene. She backed the shooter up in her report. That accessory to murder is still walking the streets. I am sure she has motive to harm the video witness.