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GoFundMe Rejects Campaign To Support South Carolina Officer Charged With Murder

Protesters gather outside city hall in North Charleston, S.C. after video of the police shooting death of Walter Scott surfaces. CREDIT: AP PHOTO
Protesters gather outside city hall in North Charleston, S.C. after video of the police shooting death of Walter Scott surfaces. CREDIT: AP PHOTO

The popular crowd-funding site GoFundMe rejected a campaign to raise money for the South Carolina officer charged with fatally shooting an unarmed black man last week.

Officer Michael Slager, 33, was charged Tuesday with first-degree murder for the killing of 50-year-old Walter Scott after video footage surfaced, showing Scott being shot multiple times with his back turned and running away. The video also appears to show Slager planting a taser by Scott’s body as evidence the shooting was in self-defense.

GoFundMe confirmed it removed a campaign supporting Slager, who was fired Wednesday.

“After review by our team, the campaign set up for Officer Slager was removed from GoFundMe due to a violation of our Terms and Conditions,” Kelsea Little, GoFundMe’s public relations manager, told ThinkProgress via email.

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Details on exactly which terms and conditions were breached were not disclosed due to privacy protections. GoFundMe can only “discuss the details of campaigns with the organizers,” Little said.

News of the campaign having been removed began circulating on Twitter after the campaign’s organizer who has set up a Twitter account supporting Officer Slager tweeted that GoFundMe rejected the page.

The organizer has since moved the campaign to another crowd-funding site, Indiegogo. That newly minted campaign and the corresponding Facebook page have yet to gain much support, generating a largely negative response.

CREDIT: Facebook
CREDIT: Facebook

The campaign organizer maintains the goal is to make sure Slager has the opportunity to a fair trial.

“I’ve seen many negative reactions to this fund raiser but remember, Ofc Michael Slager deserves a competent defense no matter what the court of popular opinion says about his actions. This is still America,” the crowd-fund organizer said on the IndieGoGo page.

Update:

An Indiegogo spokesperson responded to ThinkProgress’ request for comment with the following statement:

“Indiegogo allows anyone, anywhere to fund ideas that matter to them and just like other open platforms — such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter — we don’t judge the content of campaigns as long as they are in compliance with our Terms of Use.”

The text also has been updated to reflect that Officer Michael Slager was fired Wednesday.