The family, along with civil rights groups like the NAACP, are demanding transparency and the immediate public release of the videos.
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“Keith, don’t you do it!”.
But Charlotte police chief Kerr Putney argued that it could interfere with a parallel state probe into the incident.
A video (below) filmed by Rakeyia Scott of the police fatally shooting her husband, Keith Lamont Scott, in Charlotte, North Carolina, on September 20, was released on September 23.
In the video, Rakeyia Scott tells officers that her husband doesn’t have a gun, has a traumatic brain injury and won’t hurt them.
The Scott family attorney released the video, showing officers surrounding Scott in his vehicle. “He’s not going to do anything to you guys … he just took his medicine”, she said.
At this point, it is “unclear whether she is telling him not to get out of the vehicle he’s in”, as the Huffington Post writes.
As the encounter escalates, she repeatedly urges police, “You better not shoot him”. I mean, did you all call the ambulance?
The officer who shot Scott, identified as CMPD Officer Brentley Vinson, has been placed on administrative leave. Officers maintain Scott was carrying a weapon and refused to put it down at the officer’s orders.
The desperate voice of his wife, Rakeyia, can be heard in the video as she tells officers: “Don’t you shoot him”.
NBC reported that the family had not shown the cell phone video of the incident to the police before Friday. Local police were flanked by members of the National Guard carrying rifles in efforts to keep crowds calm. The group appeared smaller than previous nights.
Protesters called on police to release video that could resolve wildly different accounts of the shooting earlier this week. Several times the crowd broke into chants of “Release the tapes!”
Scott’s family viewed the videos on Thursday and has asked for them to be made public, Reuters reported. “Keith, don’t do it!” she can be heard yelling before four gunshots ring out. Cooper, a Democrat, is running for governor in November.
His death is the latest in a string of police-involved killings of black men that have fuelled outrage across America.
Demonstrators briefly blocked streets but were quickly moved and were allowed to remain past the midnight to 6 a.m. curfew imposed by Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts because the gathering was largely peaceful. The family’s attorney says they hope releasing the video will convince police to release theirs, CNN reports. “We have yet to make a case exclusively on video”, he said at a news conference today.
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“I’m still optimistic”, he said. “The question is on the timing”, she said.
