The congregation raised their hands in worship as soloist Brian McClain sang gospel inside the church hall at the Word Ministries Christian Center, Summerville.
“Don’t give up,” he sang. “You’ve got to be strong, stand your ground.” The crowd rose to its feet. The choir swayed in time. Images of 50-year-old Walter Scott, some from his time in the US coast guard, others with his children and his parents, played on rotation on a large screen behind the altar. The stage was decorated with flowers, some shaped into a blue star, the emblem of Scott’s beloved football team, the Dallas Cowboys.
Scott’s casket was draped in the stars and stripes. Members of his family sat close by.
The small church, where the Scott family are regular worshippers, was full to capacity. Around 200 people sat inside, as around 100 others who could not get in stood outside in the rain. Those assembled were almost entirely African American.
Scott was shot dead by a white North Charleston police officer, Michael Slager, last Saturday. The case initially failed to engage national media attention, with Slager maintaining that he had killed Scott because he feared for his own safety after Scott had attempted to take his Taser.
But on Tuesday eyewitness video emerged, filmed on a cellphone and telling an entirely different tale. The footage showed Scott running away from Slager, who fired eight times, striking the unarmed Scott four times in the back.
Outside the Word ministries, television cameras from national news networks lined the lawns.
Inside, pastor George Hamilton delivered a sermon describing the presence of an eyewitness to the shooting as an act of God. He advised all those in the congregation to “keep your phone handy, keep your charge up; you never know when you’re going to need to be around”.
Hamilton defended the North Charleston police department as an institution, but he said what the video revealed was a killing born of racial prejudice.
“There is no doubt in my mind that Walter’s death was motivated by racism,” he said. “You have to hate somebody to shoot them from behind. This hate could not have been because of the person who Walter was. This hate was because Walter was an African American.”
The funeral saw a relatively high police presence – for the purpose of traffic control, officers said. One Summerville police officer stood by the entrance to the church, seemingly assisting organisers with crowd control.
Scott’s obituary, published in the order of service, described him as a man who “loved the Lord”.
“He expressed it by singing in the choir,” it read. “He loved all of his family and friends and often embraced others as family. He was a true fan of the Dallas Cowboys.”
Following the funeral, the South Carolina Democratic congressman Jim Clyburn told reporters Scott’s case should become a “catalyst” for change in law enforcement agencies around the US.
“I think this is a catalyst to get people to face up to the fact that we’ve got problems in this country,” Clyburn said. “I think this exposed something that is already there.”
Attorneys for the Scott family also addressed reporters. They confirmed, as has previously been reported, that Scott owed child support payments and that a bench warrant had been issued in his name. One of the attorneys, Chris Stewart, said it was the family’s belief that Scott had fled from his car after being pulled over by Slager for a routine traffic violation out of fear of going to jail over the arrears.
On Saturday, local newspaper the Post and Courier published quotes from Scott taken from a 2013 interview in which he described being thrown in jail for 15 days 15 years ago, for a failure to pay child support. As a result, Scott lost his job at a film company.
“I got mad at everybody in the whole world because I just lost the best job I ever had,” he told the Post and Courier. “I just stopped doing everything. I just closed myself into a little shell and started doing things I shouldn’t have been doing.”
As the funeral on Saturday came to a close, the mourners walked in single file and slow procession to view Scott’s body. A soloist sang “I’m going up to yonder to be with my Lord” on a loop. It seemed to last for more than 20 minutes, as people came to pay their final respects.
