Video evidence does not show Keith Scott pointing a gun before Charlotte police officers shot and killed him Tuesday afternoon, said a top police official, according to the Associated Press. Angry demonstrators demanding justice for Scott have looted businesses, damaged property and injured officers, police said.
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The police chief said his priority is working to honor a request from Scott’s family to see the video. Still, Putney told the news conference that he’ll only show the footage to the victim’s family, not the public.
Putney also said that protesters have already made up their minds about what happened that night, despite not having seen the video.
Police said Carr was shot in a civilian-on-civilian incident Wednesday night, during protests that led to at least 44 arrests.
The protests follow the shooting of Keith Lamont Scott, a 43-year-old African American, the latest in a string of police-involved killings of black men that have fueled outrage across the United States.
Putney said that local police were no longer leading the investigation into Tuesday’s shooting and the decision to release the footage rested with the State Bureau of Investigation. But other evidence and witness accounts support the police narrative that officers opened fire only after Scott refused to drop his weapon, he said.
Per the Guardian: “Several civilians and four police officers were hurt in the second night of violence on Wednesday night, one man critically”.
“After watching the videos, the family again has more questions than answers”, the family said in a statement yesterday.
But Scott’s death and last week’s killing of Terence Crutcher in Oklahoma, who was unarmed, has once again raised questions of racial bias in U.S. policing.
After Scott was pronounced dead, massive protests erupted in the streets of Charlotte.
The chief’s comments come a week before a North Carolina law goes into effect that would require a court order to disclose police footage to the public.
Tulsa County prosecutors have charged a police officer who shot Mr Crutcher with first-degree manslaughter. “As a family, we respect the rights of those who wish to protest, but we ask that people protest peacefully”.
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Keith Lamont Scott (right) was shot to death by an officer in Charlotte, N.C., on September 20, 2016.
