A decorated South Carolina state trooper was fired from his job on Friday and charged with aggravated assault and battery, after shooting an unarmed man that was apparently trying to get his driving license from his SUV, as instructed, at a gas station in Columbia more than three weeks ago.

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Lance Corporal Sean Groubert, 31, was booked Wednesday but released that night but has been released after paying ten percent of the US$75,000 bond set by Magistrate Ethel Brewer.  The felony could get him 20 years in jail if convicted.

The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division had fired him Friday for not following police protocol on the use of force, when Groubert stopped Jones on September 4 for a seat-belt violation.

"The force administered in this case was unwarranted, inconsistent with how our troopers are trained, and clearly in violation of department policies," South Carolina Public Safety Director Leroy Smith said in announcing Groubert's termination.

South Carolina prosecutors played a video taken by the dashboard camera in the officer's vehicle during Groubert's bond hearing. The video showed how the officer's vehicle followed a pickup that stopped at a gas station, and from where a black man was alighting, both his feet already on the ground. The man appeared to momentarily stand still upon seeing the police car, and then a voice is heard, "May I see your license, please?"

The man, who later turned out to be Columbia resident Levar Jones, turned around and was apparently reaching into his vehicle when shouts of "Get out of the car! Get out of the car!" are heard, immediately followed by at least four successive gunfire shots. The video showed Groubert firing his pistol at Jones. Jones is seen raising  both arms and then falling out of the camera's view.  

Later, doctors found one bullet-inflicted wound on Jones' hip, which kept him in the hospital for a few days. He is now out and recuperating.

Prosecutors who viewed the video said Jones was not acting aggressively when he was fired upon, nor was he acting threateningly. Although Groubert's attorney said the trooper might have sensed a threat to his own safety, prosecutors say Jones was in the act of complying with the request to show his license when he turned and tried to reach inside the vehicle.

As he was raising his arms when he was being shot at, what appeared to be his wallet flew out of his hand. The video later showed Groubert picking up Jones's wallet on the ground and looking at the man's identification papers.

Later in the video, a man groaning asked why he was shot, to which Groubert's voice answered that Jones "dove head first into the vehicle." Jones could be heard saying next, "I'm sorry."

Audio from the state police video also showed Groubert handcuffed Jones as he was bleeding, ordering the black to "put your hands behind your back" a couple of times before radioing for an ambulance.

It was later in the video, as Jones was groaning from the gunshot wound on the hip,  that Groubert told him why he was being pulled over when he just pulled up into a gas station.

"You've a seat belt violation, Sir."

Rep. Joe Neal (D-Hopkins) is bothered by the racial aspect of this case much like the shooting to death of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

"You are doing exactly what the police officer asked you do to and you get shot for it?" said Neal, D-Hopkins. "That's insane." Neal wants a review of training for officers across South Carolina and police agencies to follow a law that requires them to collect racial profiles of the people stopped by officers. 

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