This city’s leaders, faced with mounting demands for transparency after a fatal police shooting of a black man led to rioting, resisted calls on Friday for the immediate release of video of the killing and argued that a rushed disclosure could compromise a criminal inquiry.
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Several dozen people gathered at a park and then marched through Charlotte’s business district with signs.
Scott’s wife Rakeyia yesterday released her own video, shot on her phone, of the incident.
Scott’s wife, Rakeyia Scott, did release a tape that shows her telling officers that her husband had a TBI – or traumatic brain injury – and had just taken his medication.
Scott’s wife shouts “Keith, Keith, don’t do it”, before the shots rang out on Tuesday.
Scott’s wife used her cellphone camera when she saw police confronting her husband in a parked auto outside a Charlotte apartment complex. But it’s not clear from this video whether he had one. The actual shooting is not shown on the video as Rakeyia Scott points her cellphone at the ground and screams, “Did you shoot him?” He better not be (expletive) dead.
The narrative says Scott didn’t respond to repeated commands to drop his weapon.
The killing of Keith Scott had taken on strong racial overtones in recent days led by the protest group Black Lives Matter and bolstered by U.S. media outlets who either buried the fact that the cop involved in the shooting was black – the New York Times placed it in paragraph 30, the Washington Post paragraph 31 – while other outlets did not mention it at all through a week of intense coverage such as MSNBC.
A separate protest was underway in Atlanta, where hundreds of protesters were in the streets. Scott, a 43-year-old black man, was killed Tuesday by a black officer who police say opened fire after Scott got out of a auto with a firearm during a confrontation. Protesters also marched in Atlanta.
A gun recovered at the scene of the fatal shooting of a black man by police in Charlotte, North Carolina, was loaded and fingerprints, DNA and blood from the weapon matched those of the victim, CNN reported on Friday. However, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police had not confirmed any arrests as of 4:30 a.m. Saturday.
The dashcam footage released on Saturday shows Mr Scott getting out of his vehicle and walking backwards with his hands down.
Apparently, Chief Putney is not planning to release the video today but perhaps the release of the family video will change his mind.
The next two nights of protests were free of property damage and violence, with organizers stressing a message of peace at the end of the week. There is no national-level government data on police shootings.
“I have decided that we’re at a stage where I can release additional information without adversely impacting [the State Bureau of Investigation’s] investigation”, the police chief said in a statement. “That I did not visually see in the video”, Putney said. “It’s a matter of when and a matter of sequence”.
After an officer “observed Mr Scott hold a gun up”, police put on marked vests to identify themselves as officers, police added.
McCrory pointed out that the Keith Scott incident is an interesting case with so much public pressure being placed on authorities to release the tape. One reason why this video is being released is we wanted to give the city and Police Department the opportunity to do the right thing and release the videos they have available that clarify the situation a bit, and could potentially answer some of the outstanding questions. “We must ensure justice and work to bridge divides”, she said on Twitter on Friday.
The UN working group recommended the United States create a reliable national system to track killings and excessive use of force by law enforcement officials, as well as ending the practice of racial profiling.
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Forty-four people were arrested after Wednesday’s protests, and one protester who was shot died at the hospital Thursday.
