September 23, 2016 | No Comments
Cell phone video showing the shooting of Keith Scott in Charlotte, North Carolina, released Friday by NBC News and The New York Times does not conclusively show whether the victim was armed when police officers shot him.
The video, recorded by Scott’s wife Rakeyia Scott, does not show him being shot although the sound of gunshots is audible. Keith Scott is not clearly visible in the video until after he has been shot, when officers surround his body lying on the pavement.
Charlotte police said Keith Scott was holding a gun when officers shot him outside of his apartment on Tuesday. In the video, released by the victim’s family, police officers are heard yelling at Keith Scott to “drop the gun” while his wife shouts “he has no weapon” and “he has no gun.”
Attorneys for the family have said that Keith Scott was not holding a gun when he was shot, although police have said they recovered a firearm and photos from the scene appear to show one lying next to the victim’s body.
The video offers a different perspective from the dashboard camera and body camera footage that also captured the shooting but has not yet been released. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Kerr Putney said Thursday that he did not plan to release his department’s video of the shooting, although he has allowed the victim’s family and attorneys to view it.
Keith Scott’s shooting by police, along with that of another black man, Terence Crutcher, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, has prompted demonstrations nationwide. In Charlotte, those protests grew violent Wednesday night into Thursday morning, prompting North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory to declare a state of emergency. With National Guard troops looking on and a midnight curfew in effect, protests Thursday night were mostly peaceful.