The governor of North Carolina declared a state of emergency in Charlotte and deployed National Guard troops in the city. Protesters also set fire to trash cans.
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The State Bureau of Investigation will conduct an independent investigation into the shooting of Keith Scott by a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police officer.
One person was shot near the Ritz-Carlton Hotel and city officials say the person is listed in critical condition on life support.
Two Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police (CMPD) officers were treated by EMS after they were “sprayed with a chemical agent by demonstrators” in uptown Charlotte Thursday. Officials initially said Wednesday’s victim was shot by a civilian, but yesterday Putney acknowledged some claims he was shot by a police officer.
Scott’s mother, Vernita Walker, told The Charlotte Observer her son was a “mama’s boy” who called her daily. Police said officers were looking for someone else when they saw Scott come out of a auto with a gun, and that the officer fired after Scott ignored warnings to drop it.
But Scott’s family has said he did not have a weapon – that he was sitting in his auto reading a book. Dashcam video, however, showed Crutcher with his hands in the air before being shot.
Demanding tapes from the slain father’s encounter with police be released, she scathingly indicted the police chief for his militarized response to the incident in the last couple of days. “Several reporters and people on the street were attacked as police in riot gear linked arms, marched down streets and fired teargas”.
Still, local activists say an abiding sense of injustice and anger over Mr Ferrell’s death played some part in the reaction to Tuesday’s shooting. Although the officer who shot Scott was also black – and some of the protesters filmed engaging in violence this week were white – the force is viewed by many black residents of Charlotte as biased against them.
While the case sparked some protests, until now Charlotte has avoided the kind of unrest seen in other USA cities like Ferguson, Missouri, over police killings of black men. We want you to voice your opinion, but we don’t want you to get hurt or killed. So what can we do.
Charlotte’s mayor, Jennifer Roberts, spoke to NPR on Thursday and said the video would be released “eventually”. Police say another protester was responsible, and investigators are still trying to determine who pulled the trigger.
In 2013, white police officer Randall Kerrick was charged with voluntary manslaughter after shooting dead Jonathan Ferrell, a 24-year-old unarmed black man and former college football star who was looking for help after a vehicle accident. “It’s unbearable, and it needs to become intolerable”.
“It’s time for the voiceless majority to stand up and be heard”, said the police chief, who is black.
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Republican Donald Trump tweeted “the situations in Tulsa and Charlotte are tragic. There were a couple of different body cameras, there was a dash camera, but as you know sometimes those can be not clear”. There have been no comments from her or any of her spokesmen on the violence that ravaged Charlotte. Some carried signs that read “Black Lives Matter” and “End Police Terror”, among other messages. As of Thursday, the Post had documented 706 people shot dead by police in 2016, 173 of them African-Americans.
