Putney said police dashcams did record parts of the confrontation and that the videos were being reviewed. The officers in uniform on the scene were wearing body cameras, but it does not give a full picture of what happened. Officers told Scott, who was not the suspect they were looking for, to drop the gun.
His family stated that he was reading a book, while Police Chief Kerr Putney asserts that Scott exited his auto holding a gun, citing witness reports and evidence.
Barnett led a brief call-and-response of “Hands up, don’t shoot”, echoing one of the chants that rose up during last night’s protests that turned violent, leaving 16 police officers injured.
The plainclothes officer, identified as Brently Vinson, a two-year member of the department, has been placed on leave, standard procedure in such cases.
Scott’s family says he was reading in his auto and was unarmed.
Officer Brentley Vinson was at the apartment building with other officers when they saw Scott exit his auto with a gun and then get back in the vehicle, department spokesman Keith Trietley said.
The man exited the vehicle armed with a firearm, then got back in. Lawyers for the family of Terence Crutcher, 40, disputed that he posed any threat before he was shot by Tulsa Officer Betty Shelby after his sport utility vehicle broke down on Friday.
Larry Kennedy, who coached Vinson through middle school at J.M. Robinson in south Charlotte, said Vinson had long talked about becoming a police officer and would often talk about potentially becoming a federal officer one day.
No less than 12 police officers were injured in a clash with protesters in Charlotte, North Carolina on Tuesday evening.
Some witnesses, though, said Scott was unarmed.
Some of those who gathered yesterday at the scene of the shooting appeared shell-shocked in the aftermath of Scott’s death.
Police blocked access to the area, which is about a mile from the campus of the UNC at Charlotte, as protesters gathered after the shooting.
A group of protesters then tried to break into a Walmart store before police arrived and began guarding its front entryway, video footage by local media showed.
Medic said on Twitter that it was treating the patient for a gunshot wound en route to Carolinas Medical Center at about 8:45 p.m. It was not immediately clear if a city spokesman would take questions on the investigation.
Police shootings in cities including New York, Chicago and Ferguson, Missouri, have sparked more than two years of largely peaceful street protests punctuated by days of rioting and arson and given rise to the Black Lives Matter civil rights movement. The rapidly growing crowd was policed by officers in riot gear. Less than 5 miles away, wooden pallets barricaded the entrance of a Wal-Mart that had apparently been looted.
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California has seen 100 shootings this year, Texas 58, and Florida 43.
