In the police dashcam video, Scott can be seen coming out of a white SUV while police stand behind another vehicle with their weapons raised with one of the officers repeatedly commanding Keith Scott ‘to drop the gun’.
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In the dashboard camera footage, embedded below, Scott takes several steps away from the auto before an officer fires four shots at him.
The dash cam video shows the moment that Scott exits his vehicle and is shot by police a few seconds later.
The shaky video shows an officer approach with his gun drawn and another officer already pointing his gun at Scott.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department Chief Kerr Putney said late Saturday afternoon the department would show footage taken from a police body cam and and dash cam during an encounter with Scott in Charlotte.
A file sent to the media Saturday also includes pictures of a handgun and marijuana that police say Keith Lamont Scott possessed.
According to Putney, Scott was holding a handgun when he was shot by police, but as Putney points out the gun is not visible in the following footage.
“He was an American citizen who deserved better”, he said, arguing that is all that needs to be known about Scott-the rest to be known about the incident is the “unfiltered truth”.
But attorneys for Scott’s family pushed back against the police department’s narrative Saturday evening, telling reporters that the combination of marijuana and a gun should not have constituted the type of “active aggression” that allegedly justified the shooting.
Adding: ‘The footage will not prove anything true or not it, only can support the physical evidence, ‘ he said, adding that new evidence as a whole would provide ‘the most complete puzzle’ that police could offer.
The shooting of Scott, a 43-year-old father of seven, was the latest in a series of deadly police encounters across the country in recent years that has raised questions about the use of force by US law enforcement against African-Americans and other minorities.
Neither police dashcam nor body-camera footage shows Scott pointing a gun at police officers.
Scott was shot by Officer Brentley Vinson, who is also black.
Putney said that his officers didn’t break the law but noted the state investigation continues.
The footage was released today after several days of demonstrations that have coalesced around demands that the public see the video.
“Unfortunately, we are left with far more questions than we have answers”, Ray Dotch, the brother of Scott’s wife, told a press conference. A cellphone video taken by Mr. Scott’s wife and released Friday didn’t clearly show what Mr. Scott was holding.
Scott’s family has viewed the videos and has called on Putney to release them to the public.
Putney initially refused to make the videos public, citing the ongoing investigation into the incident and fear of backlash.
On Thursday, protests were largely peaceful after National Guard members came to the city to help keep order and the mayor imposed a curfew. Police are seen on camera placing handcuffs on Scott after shooting him.
In the video, she tells the police that her husband has a traumatic brain injury as they scream for him to put down a gun, CNN reported.
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The report also says forensic examination shows Scott’s DNA and fingerprints were on the loaded gun retrieved from the scene and that Scott was wearing an ankle holster.
