Police in North Carolina said an officer shot and killed a man carrying a gun at a Charlotte apartment complex – but his family have insisted the father-of-seven was only reading a book and was disabled.
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Demonstrators protesting the fatal shooting of a black man by a police officer in Charlotte, North Carolina, have shut down a small section of Interstate 85.
They also issued a statement about the shooting, saying officers were in the area searching for a suspect with an outstanding warrant shortly before 4pm when they saw a man get out of his vehicle with a firearm.
Department spokesman Keith Trietley said they saw the man not the suspect they were looking for.
Scott exited the auto with a gun and then got back in, police said. “At this point, all we know they’re in the apartment complex parking lot and this subject gets out with a weapon, they engage him and one of the officers felt a lethal threat and fired his weapon because of that”. Emergency personnel took the person to Carolinas Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
The black officer who shot him, Brentley Vinson, has been placed on administrative leave. “One officer hit in face with a rock”, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD) said on its Twitter feed.
Some protesters were heard shouting “Black lives matter” and “Hands up, don’t shoot”. 12 police officers were injured in the riots that broke out following the incident.
Police released tear gas on the crowd, who hurled rocks and bottles at officers. He was reading a book in his auto when he was ordered to step out by police, and was tasered and shot four times, she said. News reports and posts on social media later showed police in riot gear firing tear gas and rubber bullets at the demonstrators and some people smashing out the windows of police cars.
Protesters blocked the Interstate 85 highway on Wednesday morning, and a local station affiliated with ABC reported that police used flash grenades in an attempt to disperse the crowd.
Lyric Scott, Scott’s daughter, took to Facebook to stream live video just after the shooting.
It came just a few days after a white police officer in Tulsa, Oklahoma, fatally shot an unarmed black man who could be seen on video raising his hands above his head.
But over time it became “very disruptive”, she says.
Together, they are the latest in a series of recent police shootings – from Baton Rouge, Louisiana to Dallas, Texas – that have left the African American community demanding law enforcement reforms and greater accountability from public officials. Detectives said they recovered a firearm Scott was holding during the shooting and were interviewing witnesses Tuesday night.
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Local and federal investigations into that shooting are ongoing.
