In stark contrast to Charlotte, officials in Tulsa, Oklahoma, this week waited just two days before releasing multiple videos and recordings documenting the fatal shooting of a 40-year-old black man in that city.
Advertisement
The footage does include the sound of gunfire and the shouts of police officers for Scott to drop his gun.
The video shows Rakeyia Scott filming police as they arrive on the scene. The video was taken by Rakeyia Scott and features her pleading with police not to shoot her husband while telling him to listen to officers.
The video, released on Friday to NBC News and the New York Times, shows the tense moments that lead up to and after Tuesday afternoon’s fatal police shooting but does not show the shooting itself. After reviewing the footage, the family’s attorney said in a statement that it’s “impossible” to detect what Scott is holding and at no point did Scott appear or act aggressively. The 2 ½-minute video does not show the shooting, though gunshots can be heard. She then runs closer to the scene, angling the cellphone camera this time at the spot where her husband was shot. At one point, she tells her husband to get out of the auto so that the police do not break the windows.
As the encounter escalates, she repeatedly tells police, “You better not shoot him”.
An officer in riot gear stands in front of a vandalized storefront. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The NAACP called Friday for the police video to be released as well.
Charlotte-Mecklenberg Police Chief Kerr Putney has said that video taken by police body cameras supported the police version of events, but he has refused to release the video publicly. Putney said Friday that releasing the footage of Scott’s death could inflame the situation. “I did not see that in the videos that I reviewed”, he told reporters Thursday.
Police said two officers were treated after being sprayed with a chemical agent by demonstrators, but there were no serious injuries. He was shot, police said, after officers determined he posed an imminent, deadly threat. REUTERS/Mike Blake A protester walks the streets of downtown as people protest the police shooting of Keith Scott in Charlotte, North Carolina, U.S., September 22, 2016.
North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory, a Republican locked in a tight re-election race , signed a law last week that would require authorities to obtain a court order before releasing police video. For example, if some witnesses are still being interviewed, police want the witnesses to base their accounts on what they recall, not on what they saw on police videos that were made public. “He better live. I swear, he better live”.
Rayquan Borum, 21, is accused of shooting Justin Carr on Wednesday night during protests in Charlotte.
Forty-four people were arrested after Wednesday’s protests, and one protester who was shot died at a hospital Thursday.
Putney said three police officers and one member of the National Guard was treated for minor injuries, compared to 44 arrests the previous evening.
The desperate voice of his wife, Rakeyia, can be heard in the video as she tells officers: “Don’t you shoot him”.
Advertisement
Scott’s family has said he was reading a book and waiting for his son to come home from school when the shooting happened.
