Amid increasing pressure from protesters and family, police have released two videos showing the shooting death of a black man by police that has sparked several nights of sometimes-violent protests.
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In one of the police videos, a dashboard-mounted camera from a squad auto showed Scott exiting his vehicle and then backing away from it. Police shout to him to drop a gun, but it is not clear that Scott is holding anything.
No officers are being charged at this time as a result of the police department’s investigation, he said, though an independent investigation is also being conducted by the State Bureau of Investigation. The body camera footage doesn’t show the moment shots are fired, and Scott is next seen on the ground.
Officers say they weren’t concerned about the drugs until they noticed that Scott had a gun with him, according to police.
Police in a statement on Saturday described Scott as backing away from his vehicle. “They see the gun and they think they need to”, he said.
Speaking to reporters Saturday, Putney said there was no single piece of evidence that shows the complexities of the case.
“Due to the combination of illegal drugs and the gun Mr. Scott had in his possession, officers made a decision to take enforcement action for public safety concerns”, police said.
Keith Scott looks over to police with hands by his sides a second before he was shot four times by Charlotte police in Charlotte, North Carolina, U.S.in this September 20, 2016 still image from video released by Charlotte police. He remains convinced Scott had committed a crime and had a gun.
Police had earlier in the week declined to release police video of the encounter.
Governor Pat McCrory said Friday that it would be improper of him to say if the video should be released by local authorities, saying that CMPD was the custodian of the original video and had the legal authority to release it despite the SBI leading initiating its investigation of the shooting. He said officials’ delay in releasing the videos was due to protecting the integrity of their investigation. 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”.
Putney said that officers saw marijuana and a weapon at which point they decided the situation posed “a safety issue for us and the public”.
From a different angle, police body camera footage shows an officer approach with his gun drawn and another officer already pointing his gun at Scott.
Community activists have been for days calling on Putney to release body cam and dashcam video of the shooting of 43-year-old Keith Lamont Scott.
Charlotte police will release footage of the shooting death of a black man during an encounter with officers in the state of North Carolina, Chief Kerr Putney told reporters Saturday.
The Scott family has said Mr. Scott was holding a book while waiting for his child at the bus stop in his apartment complex.
Scott’s family claims he had suffered a traumatic brain injury, and his wife can be heard on her video yelling that to police before he was shot. The demonstrations reached a violent crescendo on Wednesday before the National Guard was called in a day later to maintain order.
In addition, the Scott family still believes he was unarmed at the time of the shooting to begin with. Both Vinson and Scott are black.
Scott’s widow released her cell phone recording of the shooting on Friday.
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The shooting of Scott 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 USA law enforcement against African-Americans and other minorities.
