They spotted a man with a handgun – later identified as Scott – exit and then reenter a vehicle, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police chief Kerr Putney told journalists. Protesters rushed police in riot gear at a downtown Ch.
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Moments after her father was shot, Lyric Scott started recording on Facebook Live, livid and screaming at officers on the scene. The governor declared a state of emergency Wednesday night and called on help from the National Guard, but no Guard members were present on the street Thursday morning.
Others, such as Scott’s family, have disputed information that he had a gun, saying that he was armed with nothing more than a book.
A peaceful prayer vigil turned into an angry march, with hundreds of protesters shouting shouting “black lives matter” and “hands up, don’t shoot” met by volleys of tear gas and stun grenades by police.
“I was right in the thick of it”, witness Zach Locke said.
Police officers gave a black man multiple clear warnings to drop a handgun before one of the officers opened fire and killed him, Charlotte’s police chief said Wednesday, hours after protesters and police clashed in unrest that saw semi-trucks looted and set on fire. Earlier, the city tweeted that the person had died and that the shooting was “civilian on civilian”.
Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts previously told CNN she will review both dashcam and body camera footage of the Scott shooting sometime Thursday.
The police have so far refused to release any video of the incident, meaning two different narratives have emerged.
The shooting victim fell to the sidewalk two yards (meters) from an AFP photographer, and riot police and other protesters helped move the injured man behind the police perimeter. “The video that I have reviewed, I can not see in totality, everything that occurred”. “I can tell you we did not find a book”, the chief said.
The officer-involved shooting death of Scott, 43, occurred Tuesday in Charlotte’s University City neighborhood.
The police have said they shot Scott after he ignored officers’ instructions to drop a weapon. “He didn’t get out waving no gun, he got out like this”, said Taheshia Williams. She said he often waited there for his son because a bicycle accident several years ago left him stuttering and susceptible to seizures if he stayed out in the hot sun too long.
Police in the city were prepared for the worst after Tuesday night’s protests caused major damage and injured 12 officers.
The unrest took many by surprise in Charlotte, the banking capital of the South with a population of 830,000 people, about 35 percent of them black.
While the vigil was peaceful – several attendees brought their children – the atmosphere changed dramatically once demonstrators walked to the nearby police headquarters, where one protester pulled the American flag to the bottom of its flagpole. There were a few protests but no violence. “Why does it automatically go to shoot instead of talking (a) person into putting a gun down if he had one, whatever?”. Protesters have been demanding justice and an end to police brutality for months.
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Corine Mack, who attended the protests, said the community is frustrated.
