( CNN ) A white police officer claims he feared for his life and is justified in killing an unarmed black man . A police chief supports the police officer , who is ultimately exonerated , and a predominantly black community seethes with rage because it knows that an injustice was done . We 've seen this movie before . Spoiler Alert : Cop gets away with it . Routine stops for walking in the middle of the street or driving with a broken taillight -- these should not result in anyone 's death . But time and again it ends with a black man dead in the street and the community has no recourse . This time the stage was set in North Charleston , South Carolina , a city of about 100,000 people . Walter Scott was stopped by Officer Michael Slager for a broken taillight , and within minutes Scott was dead . According to the incident report , Slager said : `` Shots fired , and the subject is down . He took my Taser . '' His attorney at the time , David Aylor , said that Slager `` felt threatened and reached for his department-issued firearm and fired his weapon . '' But then came the video . We watched in horror as we saw Slager shoot Scott in the back multiple times . Then we saw Slager pick up something from one location and place it near Scott 's lifeless body . On Tuesday , the officer was arrested on murder charges . North Charleston police Chief Eddie Driggers told reporters , `` I have watched the video , and I was sickened by what I saw . '' Apparently so was Slager 's attorney , who announced after the video was made public that he was no longer representing the officer . After the video became public , the officials in North Charleston deftly handled the situation . However , it was an easy case . There is no plausible evidence that Slager feared for his life when Scott is seen running away . In Ferguson , the video we have in the death of Michael Brown is of press conferences with police Chief Tom Jackson , who refused to release the police officer 's name , but did release a video that appeared to show Michael Brown stealing cigars . We have the video of the military weapons deployed by the police in Ferguson that were trained on its residents and the press . The world seethed . North Charleston 's police force is about 80 % white , with a population of 47 % black and 37 % white in the city . Ferguson 's police force is 94 % white ( only three of the 53 police officers are black ) , and the city is 67 % black and 29 % white . Both North Charleston and Ferguson have police forces that are not representative of the population they serve , yet because of a video North Charleston 's police force got in front of the story . I 'm not sure North Charleston gets here without learning something from the mistakes of Ferguson . I have heard many commentators say the North Charleston shooting does n't have anything to do with race . I do n't buy it . I wonder how many whites in North Charleston with broken taillights get pulled over ? Being pulled over for driving while black is a well-known phenomenon , which I discuss in my `` Critical Race Theory '' casebook . Racial profiling by Slager could have been the catalyst for Scott being pulled over in the first place . Yes , the North Charleston officials behaved differently than the officials in Ferguson . I do n't think it 's because race had nothing to do with it . It is that perhaps the North Charleston officials are better than those in Ferguson when it comes to racially charged situations -- especially given the instructive fallout from Brown 's shooting . And , of course , the video . It remains to be seen whether Slager will be convicted of murder . Strange things can happen in a jury room . Recall how the Rodney King videotape allowed a Simi Valley , California , jury to acquit the Los Angeles police officers , but a federal jury later convicted the officers of violating King 's civil rights . What a video proves can sometimes be in the eye of the beholder .
Dorothy Brown : Shooting by cop might have followed usual narrative of blaming black suspects . But video in Walter Scott 's fatal shooting showed the truth , Brown says . With hindsight from Michael Brown case , California did the right thing with arrest .