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The Guardian reports [theguardian.com]

[On December 7,] white former South Carolina police officer [Michael Slager] was sentenced to 20 years in prison by [...] federal judge [David Norton] for the shooting death of [...] unarmed black motorist [Walter Scott].

[...]Slager had already pleaded guilty to the use of excessive force [theguardian.com] on Scott in May.

[...]According to data from the Guardian's 2015 investigation into police killings, The Counted, [theguardian.com] [...] 1,146 people were killed by police in 2015. [theguardian.com][1][2] [...] Slager is [...] the first to be convicted of murder.

[...]A bystander captured the shooting on a cellphone. [...] The bystander started recording after the struggle [claimed by] Slager[...]. The video showed Scott running away from Slager and the officer firing eight times. Scott was hit in the back five times.

After the shooting, Slager picked up his stun gun and placed it next to Scott. Slager contends he was securing the weapon. Prosecutors think he put it there to bolster his self-defense story.

[...]The judge also found that Slager, 36, obstructed justice when he made statements to state police after the shooting.

[...]The last US police officer to be convicted of murder for an on-duty shooting was James Ashby [denverpost.com] of the Rocky Ford police department in Colorado in June 2016, according to Philip Stinson, a researcher at Bowling Green University who specializes in police misconduct.

Ashby shot unarmed Jack Jacquez in the back in Jacquez's mother's home in 2014 after mistaking him for a robber. Stinson could not recall another instance of an officer being convicted of murder in recent history.

[1] Appears to want content from Facebook. [2] Appears to require a script.

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