WATCH: A South Carolina police officer is facing a murder charge, after he was captured on video fatally shooting a man in the back. The officer is white, the man who was shot was black. Omar Villafranca reports. (WARNING: Viewer discretion advised)
TORONTO – At least two crowdfunding campaigns popped up overnight on Tuesday within hours of South Carolina police officer Michael Slager being charged with murder in the shooting death of Walter Scott.
The first crowdfunding campaign was set up on Gofundme.com but was promptly taken down.
A spokesperson for Gofundme.com said the fundraiser was taken down because it violated the site’s Terms and Conditions. The spokesperson, citing privacy, wouldn’t say which part of the terms the campaign violated but the site does prohibit “campaigns in defense of formal charges of heinous crimes, including violent, hateful, or sexual acts.”
Michael Slager, a North Charleston police officer, was charged with murder Tuesday after video surfaced showing him shooting a fleeing Scott multiple times in the back. Initial reports suggested Scott was shot during a scuffle for the officer’s taser, but the video suggested otherwise. The FBI is looking at the video as part of its investigation.
It’s not the first time a crowdfunding campaign has been set up for controversial purposes. A fundraiser was set up for Officer Darren Wilson, the man accused of shooting Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. That campaign raised nearly $235,000 in the five days after it was created. Wilson was not indicted in the shooting.
And as recently as last week, a GoFundme.com campaign for the owners of Memories Pizza – an Indianapolis pizza shop whose owners said they wouldn’t serve a same-sex wedding – raised over $840,000 in two days to “relieve the financial loss endured by the proprietors’ stand for faith.”
WATCH: Cell phone video has surfaced showing a white police officer shooting an unarmed black man in the back as he ran away (WARNING: Viewer discretion advised)
A short time after the Gofundme.com campaign was taken down, a similar campaign, dubbed the Michael T. Slager Support Fund, was opened on Indiegogo.com by someone who identified themselves on the website as R. Owens. They have not responded to requests for comment.
The Indiegogo.com terms don’t explicitly prohibit campaigns like this and as of 11:30 a.m. ET the fundraiser had not been taken down.
The owner of the crowdfunding campaign appeared to have created a Twitter account in Slager’s defence, saying he “deserves a competent defense no matter what the court of popular opinion says about his actions.”
While the fund has, so far, not received any donations, it hasn’t stopped critics from vocally calling for it to be taken down.
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