Protesters shout as they march in the streets of Charlotte, N.C. Friday, Sept. 23, 2016, to protest Tuesday’s fatal police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott. Police have identified the officer involved in the shooting as Brentley Vinson, who has been employed with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department since July 21, 2014, and is now assigned to the metro division.
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Police in Charlotte were on Saturday under increasing pressure to make public video footage of the fatal police shooting of Keith Scott, a 43-year-old African American man, that sparked severe unrest in the North Carolina city this week. “Come up out the auto”, Ms. Scott says, as the video shows an officer approaching Mr. Scott’s vehicle.
Scott at this point is seen lying motionless on the ground. She continues recording and asks if an ambulance is called as officers stand over Scott.
Among the evidence released on Saturday are three photographs, depicting the firearm Scott allegedly had in his possession, an ankle holster and the marijuana “blunt” that police say he had been rolling in his SUV at the time the officers arrived.
“I didn’t see him with a gun in his hand”, Cox said.
“The officers gave loud, clear, verbal commands, which were also heard by numerous witnesses”, the police chief said at a news conference Wednesday.
He told reporters that he had made the call to release the footage and media only after getting confirmation “that when I release what I’m going to release, there is no adverse impact on the State Bureau of Investigation’s investigation”.
In the dashcam video, Scott can be seen exiting his vehicle before officers start firing.
“There’s nothing in that video that shows him acting aggressively, threatening or maybe risky”, said Justin Bamberg, one of the lawyers representing the family, said in an interview early on Friday.
Roberts said an attorney for the city told her that the law will not affect decisions about whether to release the videos in Scott’s killing, because the law was not in effect when the shooting happened.
The city has been on edge ever since Scott’s shooting death.
Representatives for the police department and the mayor’s office didn’t return emails from The Associated Press seeking comment on the family’s video. However, earlier in the week, even Putney acknowledged that “the video does not give me absolute, definitive visual evidence that would confirm that a person is pointing a gun”.
A video taken by Mr Scott’s wife (below) and released to the public yesterday did not provide an answer on whether Mr Scott had a gun. In the seconds after police shot and killed Keith Scott, Williams says you can see gloves drop from an officer’s pocket.
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.
The chief cautioned that the police footage alone is “insufficient” to determine whether there was wrongdoing by officers, though he maintained that Scott was armed when he was shot.
This differed from his message a day earlier, when he said the public shouldn’t expect the videos’ release.
His wife tells officers at the scene that he has a traumatic brain injury.
Scott’s death was the latest in a string of police killings of black men in America, which have unleashed protests and riots across the country and led to worldwide criticism of the United States’ treatment of minorities.
In the shaky video she took, the wife is overheard yelling “Don’t shoot him”. They were parked near Mr. Scott and saw that he had marijuana.
“We have yet to make a case exclusively on video”, he said at a news conference today.
Police identified the shooter as Rayquan Borum, 21, and the victim as Justin Carr. In several high-profile cases, the citizen video has served to refute police accounts that a suspect had refused commands or done something to warrant deadly force.
She said he read the Islamic holy book every day, often while waiting for his son to get off the bus.
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CMPD will also release information about other evidence found at scene.
