Nightly protests have shaken the city of Charlotte since the shooting death of a black man by police last week, but Sunday’s National Football League game between the Carolina Panthers and the Minnesota Vikings was played without interruption. The first portions of the shaky video appear to show a number of police officers surround a vehicle in a parking lot of an apartment complex.
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Police have also admitted that the videos fail to provide “absolute, definitive, visual evidence” that Scott pointed a gun at the police before he was shot. At one point in the body-camera video, there is a view of Scott from his right side and he has his arm by his body, but it is unclear if there is a gun. In the video Scott’s wife, Rakeyia Scott, tells officers that he has a TBI, or traumatic brain injury.
Charlotte is the latest US city to be shaken by protests and recriminations over the death of a black man at the hands of police, a list that includes Baltimore, Milwaukee, Chicago, New York and Ferguson, Missouri. The lapsus calami in its erroneous breaking news alert will not inspire more confidence in the Times’ objectivity.
Scott’s family has said he was holding a book, not a gun, while waiting for his son to be dropped off from school.
The Times noted the correction on its official Twitter page. “He just took his medicine”.
On Friday, Charlotte-Mecklenberg police Chief Kerr Putney said he expected police videos of the shooting to be released eventually when investigators decide it can be done as part of a package with other information, so the videos aren’t made public without context.
The videos changed the mind of Stacey Sizemore, who said that she worked in human resources for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department before leaving about six years ago.
Those commands aren’t heard in the body camera video, which doesn’t have audible sound until after the shooting. The officers saw Scott rolling a marijuana “blunt”, which they ignored, but then Brentley Vinson, who fired the fatal shots “observed Mr. Scott hold a gun up”. But Thursday, people marched through downtown in a largely peaceful protest. “So no, I don’t see a reason to kill him”. However, North Carolina law places restrictions on releasing body-cam footage to the public.
“What we know and what you should know about him is that he was an American citizen who deserved better”, he said.
Police continue to yell at Scott to “drop the gun” and, moments later, multiple gunshots ring out.
The Scott family said it released the video in the “name of truth and transparency”, according to a statement released by attorney Charles G. Monnett.
He also told reporters on Saturday that officers saw marijuana and a weapon in Keith Lamont Scott’s auto and said, “uh oh, this is a safety issue for us and the public”.
Three previous nights of protests included two that were chaotic, with more than a dozen officers wounded and one other person killed. Police arrested Rayquan Borum on Friday in connection with the fatal shooting of Justin Carr. Scott didn’t own a gun or habitually carry a gun, family attorney Justin Bamberg said.
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Protests erupted on the streets of the city in the wake of his death.
