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Carolina in a State of Emergency

Gov. Pat McCrory, a former Charlotte mayor, condemned violent protests in a statement, and said the state highway patrol was sending troopers to help the Charlotte police force as needed.

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By early Wednesday morning, protesters had shut down traffic on Interstate 85.

Demonstrators held a vigil for Scott on Wednesday night in uptown, but hundreds more joined the protests and marched through the streets of Charlotte.

Nation of Islam activist BJ Murphy called for an economic boycott of Charlotte. Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets in efforts to disperse the crowds.

Immediately after the man was injured, police unleashed flash grenades and protesters threw fireworks before tear gas was sacked by police as hundreds dispersed.

But not all the marchers left. The man was not shot by a police officer, the city of Charlotte said on Twitter.

The person shot is now in critical condition on life support, two others were hospitalized and four police officers were taken to area hospitals.

The loud crack of a gunshot startled protesters as they hurled objects and clashed with riot police in Charlotte, North Carolina, where racial tensions soared a day after a black man was killed by officers.

The American Civil Liberties Union urged police to release their camera footage of the incident.

Meanwhile, clashes between dozens of demonstrators and the police continued. Sixteen officers suffered minor injuries.

“Your life is in danger, you need to move!” an officer yelled.

The woman did not respond to Facebook messages, and her claims could not immediately be verified by The Associated Press.

After calling to “make America safe again” in a tweet, Trump suggested later on Wednesday that the Tulsa officer who shot Crutcher had “choked”.

Putney said an African-American officer shot Scott after he refused repeated demands to put down a gun.

Authorities have said the officer who shot Scott, Brentley Vinson, was in plainclothes and not wearing a body camera. “I can tell you we did not find a book”, the chief said.

However, Scott’s family said he was disabled and was holding a book.

Officers repeatedly told Scott to drop his handgun, the chief said, but he didn’t. No mobile-phone video has emerged on social media, as happened in other cases around the country. Vinson has been with the department for two years.

U.S. Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina said the protests were embarrassing and caused “utter chaos”.

Officers on bicycles surrounded a pool of blood on the ground and a few people threw bottles and clods of dirt at police.

The unrest took many by surprise in Charlotte, the banking capital of the South with a population of 830,000 people, about 35 percent of them black. The jury deadlocked and the charge was dropped last summer.

He said he saw a group of 300 people spread over several city blocks early Thursday. But a police spokeswoman declined to comment on how they reached that conclusion, other than to say, “This is not an officer-involved shooting”.

Department spokesman Keith Trietley said that the 43-year-old got out of the auto and back in, and when officers approached he got out of the vehicle again with a gun, and at least one officer fired a weapon.

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Flynn compared the demonstrations in Charlotte to the uprising in Ferguson, Mo., in August 2014, when a white police officer shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager.

Brian Blanco  Getty Images Police clash with protestors in Charlotte