Charlotte police shooting: Family says video is unclear on reported gun
Charlotte, North Carolina (CNN)Relatives of Keith Lamont Scott, after watching two police videos, said they couldn’t say what was in his hands when he was shot and killed by a Charlotte police officer.
“It is impossible to discern from the videos what, if anything, Mr. Scott is holding in his hands,” attorney Justin Bamberg said.
The family wants police to immediately release the videos to the public, Bamberg said.
But Charlotte-Mecklenberg police Chief Kerr Putney told reporters earlier Thursday that he’s not going to do that because he doesn’t want to jeopardize the investigation.
Asked whether there was a time at which the public could expect to see it, Putney said there should be no such expectation.
“Transparency’s in the eye of the beholder,” he said. “If you think we should display a victim’s worst day for public consumption, that is not the transparency I’m speaking of.”
Putney later told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer the decision wouldn’t be his to make much longer anyway, as the investigation was being turned over to North Carolina’s State Bureau of Investigation.
Putney said video does not provide “definitive visual evidence” that Scott pointed a gun at police officers, including Brentley Vinson, who shot Scott. But other evidence and witness accounts support the police narrative that officers opened fire only after Scott refused to drop his weapon, he said.
The family says the video shows Scott acting calmly and non-aggressively on Tuesday. “When he was shot and killed, Mr. Scott’s hands were by his side and he was slowly walking backwards,” Bamberg said.
Scott didn’t own a gun or habitually carry a gun, the family has told their attorneys, Bamberg said. Scott’s family has said he was reading a book in his vehicle when officers approached.
Mayor Jennifer Roberts also watched the videos.
“It is not a very clear picture, and the gun in question is a small gun and it was not easy to see with the way the motion was happening,” she told “Anderson Cooper 360.”
The mayor said she is leaning toward releasing the footage to the public, but must remain mindful of the ongoing investigations into Scott’s shooting.
Shooting victim dies
The man shot outside Charlotte’s Omni Hotel during Wednesday night’s violent protests over Scott’s death has died, police public information officer Robert Tufano told CNN.
The victim was identified as Justin Carr, 26, from Charlotte.
Carr was discovered at the Omni Hotel uptown, and because the crowd was too thick for paramedics to access the scene, he had to be evacuated by a SWAT armored personnel carrier, the chief said. Authorities have said he was shot by another civilian.
Fears of violent protests
After violent protests raged for the second night in Charlotte, residents were uneasy Thursday as a state of emergency was in effect and National Guard troops arrived.
On Wednesday, police arrested 44 people at the protests, one of which turned into a riot. People smashed windows, looted storefronts and threw objects at others and police.
Roberts has signed an order enacting a curfew for the city, an aide told CNN. The curfew goes into effect at midnight and extends until 6 a.m. ET.
“The curfew will be in effect each day until the end of the State of Emergency is declared or until the official proclamation is revoked,” the city tweeted.
Several hundred people gathered Thursday night on streets in uptown Charlotte; the demonstrations appeared largely peaceful.
Putney used a news conference to send a message to those who would continue looting and destroying property in the city, which also resulted in injuries to nine civilians and five police officers.
Two of the officers suffered minor eye injuries, while three others had heat-related ailments.
North Carolina recently passed a law that blocks the release of police recordings from body or dashboard cameras with limited exceptions, but that law is not set to take effect until October.
“Technology like dashboard cameras and body cameras can be very helpful, but when used by itself technology can also mislead and misinform, which causes other issues and problems within our community,” Gov. Pat McCrory said after signing the bill into law in July.
Victim in critical condition
The perceived lack of transparency has fueled widespread anger in Charlotte, prompting McCrory to declare a state of emergency overnight.
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While there were instances of peaceful demonstration throughout the city, some rioters overturned trash cans and set the contents on fire Wednesday night.
Onlookers cheered as a masked man shattered a hotel window while another one hurled rocks through it. Others spray-painted “Black Lives Matter” on business facades and smashed car windows.
‘It was madness’
“I was right in the thick of it,” witness Zach Locke said. “People found whatever objects they could to break glasses. It was madness.”
Stores were looted, and freelance photographer Marcus DiPaola told CNN he saw people knock over an ATM and grab money from it.
The Hyatt House Hotel downtown went into lockdown as protesters tossed bricks through the window. Protesters punched a valet and front desk attendant in the face, hotel manager Matt Allen said.
Not all the protests were violent.
Kristine Slade, 19, a University of North Carolina at Charlotte student, joined the protests Tuesday night, kneeling in front of a police line with her hands up in the air. She said she felt like she had to protest, because “if nobody else is going to do it, then we’re still going to be in the same position.”
But she became increasingly worried Wednesday night as she saw rocks being thrown, fires being set and acts of vandalism committed. She left early when police tried to disperse the crowd.
Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/22/us/charlotte-protests/index.html