CHARLOTTE, N.C. -A person was shot and an officer was injured during a second night of protests following the fatal police shooting of a black man the day before.
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North Carolina’s governor is calling in the National Guard to the city of Charlotte following protests that have turned violent.
President Barack Obama spoke by telephone on Wednesday with the mayors of Charlotte and Tulsa, a White House official said.
“We can not tolerate violence”.
“Any violence directed toward our citizens or police officers or destruction of property should not be tolerated”, Mr McCrory said in a statement.
Onlookers cheered as a masked man shattered a hotel window while another one hurled rocks through it. Others spray-painted “black lives matter” on business windows and smashed vehicle windows.
Some protesters banged on glass windows, others threw objects at police and stood on cars as police appeared to fire tear gas, prompting demonstrators to run.
After law enforcement agents were able to get control of the demonstrators, city and state officials held news conferences Wednesday to discuss the latest in the Scott case and how to move the city forward peacefully.
The Rev. Steve Knight of Missiongathering Christian Church in Charlotte said he saw the victim, “go down on the pavement”.
The demonstrations started on Tuesday after police shot and killed a black man.
“I can tell you a weapon was seized, a handgun”, Putney said, “I can also tell you we did not find a book that has been made referenced to”.
The shooting of Scott was the most recent in a series of police shootings of black men, and the Charlotte violence was beginning to echo some of the worst street violence of 2014s protests against the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.
Police said a gun was recovered but Scott’s family said that’s not true and claim it wasn’t a gun, it was a book.
Others, such as Scott’s family, have disputed information that he had a gun, saying that he was armed with nothing more than a book.
The National Guard and State Highway Patrol were dispatched to the area after Keith Scott, a 43-year old black man, was shot and killed by officers on Tuesday.
They also broke into Charlotte storefronts and smashed windows along the way.
Putney was adamant that Scott posed a threat, even if he didn’t point his weapon at officers, and said a gun was found next to the dead man. Officer Brentley Vinson, who is black, then shot him. Dirt from the pots mixed with the wounded protester’s blood on the sidewalk, trampled by the opposing ranks of police and protesters. But it’s not clear what the body cameras worn by three officers who were present during the shooting may have captured.
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Charlotte police officers went to the complex at about 4 p.m. looking for a suspect with an outstanding warrant when they saw Scott – who was not the suspect they were looking for – inside a vehicle, department spokesman Keith Trietley said in a statement.
