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Feidin Santana, bystander who recorded Walter Scott shooting: 'I'm still scared'

Feidin Santana, the bystander who captured on video North Charleston police officer Michael Slager shooting Walter Scott in the back, says his life has "changed" following the incident and he remains cautious and "scared."
/ Source: TODAY

Feidin Santana, the bystander who captured on video North Charleston police officer Michael Slager shooting Walter Scott in the back, says his life has "changed" following the incident and he remains cautious and "scared."

"I say life changed in a matter of seconds. I never thought this would happen, that I would be a witness," he told TODAY's Matt Lauer in an exclusive interview Thursday. "I'm still scared."

Santana said he "definitely" believes Slager saw him when, at one point in the video, he looked his way.

"I recorded the video so that maybe he can feel that someone is there," he said. "There were just the three of us in that moment. I couldn’t tell what was going to happen, so I just wanted him to know that he's not by himself."

On Wednesday, Santana, 23, revealed himself as the man behind the video in an interview with NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt.

"Before I started recording, they were down on the floor. I remember the police [officer] had control of the situation," Santana told Holt. "He had control of Scott. And Scott was trying just to get away from the Taser. But like I said, he never used the Taser against the cop."

"As you can see in the video, the police officer just shot him in the back," Santana said on Wednesday. "I knew right away, I had something on my hands."

Santana's lawyer, Todd Rutherford, told Lauer on TODAY that his client fears for his life knowing that police officers who responded to the shooting continue to be investigated for what happened after Scott was shot, including whether anyone administered CPR to him like they said they did.

"The first thing he said to me this morning was, how can I get protection,” Rutherford said. "What does he do when the people that are supposed to protect us are the ones that are turned against us?"

Santana, who is originally from the Dominican Republic, said his life has completely changed since going public.

"Now people know where I live. People know where I work, so my normal routine from just walking to my house to work have changed," he said. "At some point, I thought about staying anonymous and not showing my face and not talking about it. But this [is] something that has to go beyond that.

"If I want to show my face, everybody over there knows, including the police officers in that department, who I am."