Investigator Says He Was Concerned When He Saw Walter Scott’s Wounds
Former North Charleston Police Officer Michael Slager sits at the defense table during testimony in Slager’s murder trial, Tuesday Nov. 8, 2016, in Charleston, South Carolina. Grace Beahm/Pool / Getty Images
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Brown was one of three crime-scene investigators who testified Tuesday. Also testifying was former North Charleston Police Department investigator Scott Wyant, who said he didn’t do a complete investigation at the scene because state investigators handle shootings involving police officers.
Wyant served more than 20 years with the department. He said on cross-examination that he was told by his superiors in the department not to do a trace-evidence investigation on Slager looking for such things as gunpowder residue. Wyant said he had expressed his concern that doing so would be a conflict of interest.
Defense attorney Andy Savage has long questioned the adequacy of law enforcement’s investigation and at one point last year filed a motion asking the court to look into what he contended was the state’s destruction of evidence.
Meanwhile, city officials have said that local police and the FBI are investigating nine suspicious letters mentioning racially oriented violence that were sent from outside of the United States to hotels and a black church where nine parishioners were gunned down last year. The letters arrived amid both the Slager trial and another trial with racial overtones that is taking place in federal court across the street.
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Jury selection resumes Wednesday in federal court in the trial of Dylann Roof, who is charged with hate crimes, obstruction of religion and other counts in the fatal shooting of nine black parishioners at the Emanuel AME Church in June 2015.
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