Four police officers were injured during the protests.
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“It was an ambush”.
Mayor Roberts told ABC News’ Good Morning America that city officials were considering imposing a curfew for Thursday night.
Several companies based in the area have told their employees to stay home Thursday.
Witnesses at the apartment complex told NBC Charlotte they have video of the shooting, but they refused to release it to us saying they want to show it to the family first. According to the daughter, her father was sitting in his vehicle reading a book and waiting for his son to return from school.
Scott’s death on Tuesday set off two nights of unrest in Charlotte, North Carolina. I know that most of the demonstrators gathered to exercise their constitutional right to peaceful protest in order to raise issues and create change. The turmoil prompted Governor Pat McCrory to declare a state of emergency and deploy the National Guard and highway patrol officers to the city to help restore peace. Police say he had a gun, but neighbours and his family say he had only a book as he waited for his son to leave the school bus. Students at the University of North Carolina staged a “die-in” to protest police violence. The slogan “Black Lives Matter” was spray-painted on windows.
After law enforcement agents were able to get control of the demonstrators, city and state officials held news conferences Wednesday to discuss the latest in the Scott case and how to move the city forward peacefully.
“The subject got back out of the vehicle armed with a firearm and posed an imminent deadly threat to the officers who subsequently fired their weapon striking the subject”, public affairs officer Keith Trietley said.
Everything has become a target for protesters and agitators in North Carolina. No book was found, Putney said. Both men were African-American, a police official said.
Charlotte Police Chief Kerr Putney was angered by the stories on social media, especially a profanity-laced, hourlong video on Facebook, where a woman identifying herself as Scott’s daughter screamed “My daddy is dead!” at officers at the shooting scene and repeating that he was only holding a book. Police said they recovered a gun they said Scott was holding.
The NAACP put out a statement on Wednesday expressing solidarity with “those mourning in the city of Charlotte”, and calling for the release of video footage. Police responded with tear gas.
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Putney says Brentley Vinson, the officer who opened fire, was not wearing a body camera.
