“I have declared a State of Emergency & initiated efforts to deploy the Nat’l Guard & Highway Patrol to assist local law enforcement in CLT”, Governor Pat McCrory said on Twitter.
Advertisement
Police in North Carolina shot and killed a person carrying a gun Tuesday afternoon at a Charlotte apartment complex, officials said.
Police are ordering demonstrators to disperse while firing tear gas and flashbangs into crowds. The clashes caused injuries to 16 police officers and several protesters.
Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts said the gunshot victim was taken to the hospital, but did not provide a name or other details.
“We are exhausted of people, especially police, killing our black men”, Blanche Penn, a longtime community activist, said at Wednesday evening’s rally, where the mood began as resolute but peaceful.
Earlier on Wednesday, presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton weighed in on the violence in Charlotte, which came on the heels of another fatal police shooting of a black man, Terence Crutcher, on Friday in Tulsa.
A lawyer for the officer who killed Terence Crutcher said she also feared for her life and fired when Crutcher reached through a window into the auto.
Community activists and protesters are calling for the release of the video of the incident to get clarification on what exactly happened.
The protests began peacefully, but Chief Putney said that when it started to become more violent, “officers were compelled to respond more aggressively”. The victim was shot while he stood between two ministers, and we believe he was shot by police. Police did not shoot the man, city officials said.
Brentley Vinson, the officer involved in the shooting, has been placed on paid administrative leave, according to the mayor. Hundreds demonstrated at the scene of the shooting Tuesday and into uptown early into Wednesday morning.
And then it was Charlotte, where Keith L. Scott, 43, black like the other two, was shot by a police officer in a parking space marked “Visitor” outside an unremarkable apartment complex on Tuesday. However, a witness to the shooting said Scott was holding a book. Dino Davis said. “They say it was the tear gas, and it looked like one the tear gas exploded”. The person was shot by a second civilian, not by a police officer. While they were looking for that individual, officers saw a man get out of a auto with a gun, then get back into the vehicle, the statement said.
Advertisement
Charlotte Observer reporter Katie Peralta took this shot of the NASCAR Hall of Fame with a signpost thrown through one window after tweeting that it, the Westin and a Buffalo Wild Wings had been looted.
