A white South Carolina police officer was arrested and charged with murder on Tuesday after a video showed him shooting eight times at the back of a 50-year-old black man who was running away after a traffic stop and died at the scene.

The FBI and the U.S. Justice Department launched a separate investigation into the fatal shooting, which is the latest flash point in a series of incidents that have raised questions about policing and race relations across the country.

Civil rights leaders called for calm, while many on social media said the official response would have been very different had the incident not been filmed by a member of the public who then handed the video to the victim's family.