A crowd of demonstrators briefly shut down Charlotte’s Interstate 277 Friday evening as a fourth night of protests over the shooting of a black man by police unfolded. His death is the latest in a string of police-involved killings of black men that have fuelled outrage across America.
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Hundreds of demonstrators were also marching in the southern city of Atlanta in a protest calling for police reform organized by the NAACP, the black community’s main civil rights organization.
An estimated 300 protesters took to the streets, leaving the freeway within a short time.
Clinton initially announced plans to go to Charlotte on Sunday, but late on Friday her campaign said the trip had been postponed. The curfew has ended for Friday in Charlotte following a night of mostly peaceful protests of the shooting of Keith Lamont Scott by an officer. But some witnesses and family members say Scott, who had suffered from a previous traumatic brain injury, did not have a gun and instead was holding a book.
Several gunshots can be heard in the video, which was released to USA media, followed by Mrs Scott screaming, “Did you shoot him?”
The family of Keith Scott, a 43-year-old father of seven, on Friday released a two-minute video recorded by Scott’s wife, Rakeyia, including audio of her pleading with officers “Don’t shoot him!” About a half-dozen gunshots can be heard in the video released to US media, followed by her scream, “Did you shoot him?”
“Did you shoot him? Come on out the auto”, she shouts to her husband.
“Charlotte should release police video of the Keith Lamont Scott shooting without delay”.
His wife, Rakeyia Scott, pleaded with officers not to shoot and insisted the man was unarmed in a heartwrenching video that emerged on Friday. “We appreciate that they are concerned about Charlotte”, Roberts told CNN.
A spokesperson from the SBI told the Charlotte Observer’s editorial board, however, that the video is still under the jurisdiction of the police department and that they have “the legal authority to release it”.
“I can tell you a weapon was seized – a handgun”, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Kerr Putney said a press conference Wednesday.
Scott never aggressively approached officers and was shot as he walked slowly backward with his hands by his side, Bamberg said.
“The officer perceived his failure to comply with commands, failure to drop the weapon and facing the officers as an imminent threat”, he told Fox News.
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Putney said he has seen the video and it does not contain “absolute, definitive evidence that would confirm that a person was pointing a gun”. “One step toward meeting both goals is for the videos in this case to be released to the public”.
