The protests broke out on Tuesday in Charlotte, North Carolina, after 43-year-old Keith Lamont Scott was shot by a black officer at an apartment complex in the north east of the city. Some officers were in riot gear.
Advertisement
Many more reportedly had minor injuries as protesters threw numerous objects, including rocks and water bottles, at police officers.
More than a dozen officers were injured, including one who was hit in the face with a rock.
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. Protesters clash with police in Charlotte, N.C. on Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2016. One damaged vehicle was towed away.
Video from WCCB-TV in Charlotte showed police in riot gear stretched across a two-lane road confronting protesters at the apartment complex later in the night.
“I urge those demonstrating in Charlotte to remain peaceful in their expressions of protest and concern”, she said.
According to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police, at about 3:54 p.m. officers were searching for a suspect with an outstanding warrant at The Village at College Downs, when they saw a man inside a vehicle in the apartment complex.
Local and federal investigations into that shooting are ongoing and U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the Justice Department was in regular contact with Charlotte officials.
Putney says the officer who shot Scott, Brently Vinson, was not wearing a body camera. As is standard procedure with any officer-involved shooting, Vinson was placed on paid administrative leave. Vinson has been employed with the CMPD since July 21, 2014. He also says the officer who shot Scott was not wearing a bodycam, but that other video footage of the incident is being reviewed. His family has been notified of his death.
Putney says a handgun was recovered on the scene, and that witnesses corroborated the officer’s accounts. He says the officers told him to drop the gun and that he got out of the vehicle a second time still carrying the gun.
Putney said Scott exited auto with a gun.
Shelby’s attorney has said Crutcher was not following the officers’ commands and that Shelby was concerned because he kept reaching for his pocket as if he were carrying a weapon.
A man, who identified himself as the victim’s brother, tells FOX 46 Charlotte that his brother was just reading a book when officers shot him. Detectives were interviewing witnesses, police said.
Scott was then taken to Carolinas Medical Center where he was pronounced deceased a short time later.
Black Lives Matter protesters took to rioting in the streets in Charlotte, North Carolina, Tuesday night in response to the fatal police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott, a black man who was killed after police saw him leave his auto at an apartment complex holding a gun.
Advertisement
By 5 a.m. Wednesday, the streets were quiet with no protesters in sight and I-85 was moving again. Some civilians were seen on camera taking items out of the backs of tractor trailers and setting them on fire in the middle of the highway, WSOC-TV reported.
