US cop charged over unarmed man's death

A white man who was the police chief in a small US town has been charged over the shooting death of an unarmed black man three years ago.

Richard Combs, the former police chief and sole officer in the small town of Eutawville listens in court, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2014, in Orangeburg, S.C. Combs, who fatally shot an unarmed black man in South Carolina in 2011 was charged with murder, and his lawyer accused prosecutors of taking advantage of national outrage toward police to get the indictment. (AAP)

A white man who was the police chief in a small South Carolina town has been charged with murder in the 2011 shooting death of an unarmed black man.

Richard Combs worked in Eutawville when 54-year-old Bernard Bailey came to Town Hall to argue about his daughter's broken tail light ticket. Combs and Bailey briefly fought, and the police chief shot Bailey twice in the chest.

A grand jury indicted Combs on Wednesday, the same day a New York grand jury refused to indict an officer in the chokehold death of an unarmed black man.

It's more than a week after a grand jury refused to indict an officer in the death of unarmed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

Eutawville is a town of just over 300 people. About one-third are black.