LONDON (MarketWatch) — The passerby who captured video of a South Carolina police officer shooting a fleeing black man in the back has stepped forward to talk about the events he witnessed.

Feidin Santana, a 23-year-old barber originally from the Dominican Republic, was on his way to work when he filmed the shooting in a small park in North Charleston, South Carolina, on Saturday.

Santana said he didn’t hear any warning from the police officer, Michael T. Slager, before he fired multiple shots that killed 50-year-old Walter Scott.



“I never ... thought that the police would shoot him right in the scene,” Santana told NBC News in an interview that aired Wednesday.

In audio released of Slager’s call to the North Charleston Police Department right after the shooting, the police officer says “shots fired. Subject is down. He grabbed my Taser.” However, Santana said he didn’t see Scott make any grab for the device. Instead, the victim began running away, appearing “scared” and “hurt”, he said.

On Tuesday, Slager was charged with murder after Santana’s video surfaced. The five-year police officer, who previously served in the U.S. Coast Guard, said that he had felt threatened by Scott, who had been pulled over in a traffic stop.

Santana, who said only the three of them were present in the park, said he was afraid while he was capturing the video on his phone. “I’m still scared,” he told NBC News. “At some point I thought about staying anonymous.”

Santana said he considered erasing the video and leaving town as he “felt that my life with this information might be in danger,” but he reconsidered after reading the police account of the shooting.

After looking at the video, “I knew that the cop didn’t do the right ... thing,” said Santana.