Quiet returned to Charlotte streets Wednesday after the police-involved shooting of an African-American man ignited a night of anger and violence that left windows smashed, stores looted, trucks set ablaze and 16 police officers wounded in the melee. The Charlotte Police Department said 12 of their officers were injured in protests after the shooting death of Keith Lamont Scott.
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“It’s time for the voiceless majority to stand up and be heard”, the police chief, who is also black, said Wednesday.
Putney said 16 officers were injured in the protests.
Police used tear gas on dozens of protesters and arrested one in the unrest, which shut down part of Interstate 85.
“I don’t know that he (Keith Scott) definitively pointed a weapon at an officer” but he says Scott did have a gun.
“My daddy is dead”, the woman screams on the video.
CMPD said Scott got out, had a gun on him, and put the officers in imminent danger. The officers in uniform on the scene were wearing body cameras, but it does not give a full picture of what happened.
The North Carolina chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union urged Charlotte police to release any footage of the shooting, but Putney said he couldn’t because of an ongoing investigation.
But a person doesn’t have to point a weapon directly at police to spur deadly force, CNN law enforcement analyst Art Roderick said. That new law says footage from police body or dashboard cameras can’t be released publicly without a court order.
“It’s time to change the narrative because I can tell you from the facts that the story’s a little bit different as to how it’s been portrayed so far, especially through social media”. In it, she appears to be at the shooting scene, which is surrounded by yellow police tape, as she yells at officers.
A woman who identified herself as the mother of a black man who was shot to death by Charlotte police says her son was raised in the Charleston, South Carolina, area.
“I am asking our community, asking the people here to please wait until all the information is available”, she said. He has worked for the department for two years.
Police said the protests broke out around 7 p.m. Tuesday, about three hours after the shooting. Some protesters opened up the backs of tractor trailers, took boxes out and set them on fire in the middle of the highway, WSOC-TV reported. At least seven people were taken from the demonstration and treated for non-life threatening injuries, the Charlotte Observer tweeted. At other times, rocks and bottles were hurled at police, and several police cars were damaged. Less than 5 miles away, wooden pallets barricaded the entrance of a Wal-Mart that had apparently been looted. All they did-them ‘jumpout boys, ‘ them undercover detectives-they jumped out their truck, they said, ‘Hands up, he got a gun!
A civil rights activist says he has a powerful witness to the shooting of a black man by a black Charlotte police officer at an apartment complex.
“Don’t spend no money with no white folks that don’t respect us”, he said at a press conference with black leaders Wednesday.
Protesters held signs that read “It Was A Book” while others chanted “Black Lives Matter”.
Police Chief Kerr Putney said during a news conference Wednesday morning that officers were searching for a suspect Tuesday when they saw Scott exit a vehicle with a handgun. City Police Chief Kerr Putney said the investigation is ongoing.
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Lynch made her comments at the beginning of her address to the International Bar Association Conference in Washington. “They have once again highlighted – in the most vivid and painful terms – the real divisions that still persist in this nation between law enforcement and communities of color”.
