The FBI and the US Justice Department have launched an investigation into the murder of a black man by a white policeman in South Carolina last Saturday.<br /><br /> North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey said investigators decided to charge officer Michael Slager, 33, after they viewed a video showing him shoot dead Walter Scott, 50, even as the man appeared to be unarmed and running away from him.<br /><br /> “If you make a bad decision… you have to live by that decision,” Summey told reporters. “We as a city want the family to know that our hearts and our thoughts are with them.”<br /><br /> The video, posted online by the New York Times, shows the officer firing eight shots at Scott, who then slumps facedown onto the grass.<br /><br /> The video was apparently recorded by a bystander and it quickly went viral. Chris Stewart, an attorney for Scott’s family, congratulated its author for helping shed light on the circumstances of the shooting.<br /><br /> “What if there was no video, what if there was no witness or hero as I call him to
