When I interviewed Walter Scott for a story about deadbeat dads in 2003, he talked about his struggle to support his kids — the same issue that haunted him the day he died in South Carolina a week ago.
Scott is believed to have fled a police officer during a traffic stop in North Charleston because he was concerned he'd be arrested over his late child-support payments. The unarmed, black man was then fatally shot in the back by the cop.
When I first met Scott in Charleston, it was to talk about Father to Father, a program he enrolled in after being locked up for failing to make child-support payments.
Scott didn't stand to get a reduction in those payments by agreeing to talk to me. Outing himself as a deadbeat wasn't going to help his public image, either.
The most he could hope for was that other dads struggling to make payments would learn about the program, which aimed to help them.
Scott told me at the time that after he initially got pinched, "I said, 'Man, you got four kids depending on you, and you got people in your life that love you. You got to get it together.' "
Scott wasn't perfect, but he was honest and didn't hide his time in the clink.
He told me he was so overwhelmed with not being able to hold down a job and make the payments that he withdrew from his children and turned to booze to kill the pain.
His mother, whom he tried to call before running from the cop nine days ago, set him straight for a spell, telling him that his kids missed him.
"That just broke my heart," he told me. "It helped me come to my senses."
Warning: The following video contains graphic content
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