You were the one with a gun, he was running away from you, you say you feared for your life—but he's the one who's dead:

A white police officer has been charged with murder, the mayor of North Charleston, S.C., said Tuesday, after a video surfaced showing him shooting and killing an apparently unarmed black man in the back while he ran away. The officer, Michael T. Slager, had said he feared for his life because the man took his stun gun in a scuffle after a traffic stop on Saturday. A video, however, shows the officer firing eight times as the man fled. The state charges were announced in a news conference Tuesday evening.

The video also shows the cop walking over the dying man and dropping his stun gun next to his body.

North Charleston is the state’s third-largest city with a population of about 100,000. African-Americans make up about 47 percent of residents, and whites account for about 37 percent. The city police department is about 80 percent white, according to data collected by the Justice Department in 2007, the most recent period available.

What they said: