New video of the moments leading up to the shooting death of 43-year-old Keith Lamont Scott at the hands of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police has been released by the victim’s family.
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The smartphone footage filmed by his wife Rakeyia Scott, released by her lawyers to media including AFP, will add to mounting pressure on Charlotte authorities to make the video public.
Two police videos – from a dashboard camera and an officer’s body camera – show how Scott died. Police have said that he was armed, but witnesses said he held only a book.
“He has a TBI, he’s not going to do anything to you guys”, she says, presumably referring to a traumatic brain injury.
Scott’s wife urges her husband to exit his vehicle, and then says several times, “Don’t do it”. “If there’s an encounter [and] you go down and the weapon is right there, it’s kind of obvious a weapon was involved, even though I didn’t visually see it from my angle”. It’s unclear from the video shot by Scott’s wife whether he had a weapon.
She states the address and says: “These are the police officers that shot my husband”.
The footage appears to corroborate an image that police released Thursday – in both, Scott is seen lying face-down on the asphalt, wearing bright blue trousers and white-soled sneakers.
Charlotte-Mecklenberg Police Chief Kerr Putney said Friday he expected police videos of the shooting to be released eventually, when investigators decide that it can be released as part of a package with other information, so that the videos aren’t released without context.
In the first seconds of the video, Scott’s wife can be heard saying repeatedly, “Don’t shoot him, don’t shoot him”.
“There’s nothing in that video that shows him acting aggressively, threatening or maybe risky”, Justin Bamberg, one of the lawyers representing the family, said in an interview early on Friday. He told reporters on Friday that releasing it now could harm the investigation into the shooting, being led by the state.
“The question is on the timing”, she said, stressing that she leans toward transparency but that evidence in the case was still being gathered.
Protests over Scott’s death have broken out every night since his Tuesday death. Police said two cameras captured the incident, including a body camera and a police auto dashboard camera. “[The video] supports what we’ve heard and the version of the truth that we gave about the circumstances”, he said.
Aided by surveillance videos, police arrested Rayquan Borum without incident about 7 a.m. Friday, Putney said.
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Scott was shot as he walked slowly backward with his hands by his side, Bamberg said.
