Thursday, March 28, 2024

Charlotte Police Chief: Video Does Not Definitively Show Keith Lamont Scott Pointing a Gun

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*Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Kerr Putney said he will allow the family of Keith Lamont Scott to view video of his fatal shooting, but has no obligation to release the footage to the public.

He also admitted during a Thursday morning press conference that the video does not show Scott pointing a gun at officers.

“The video does not give me absolute video evidence that a person is pointing a gun,” Putney said, but added that in context with other evidence it supports “the version of the truth that we gave.”

Police maintain Scott had a gun, which they claim posed an imminent threat to officers, while Scott’s family insists he did not have a gun, but was holding a book. The video could be key to resolving the two vastly different accounts.

Scott, 43, was killed Tuesday while police were serving a warrant at The Village at College Downs apartment complex on Old Concord Road. Police say Scott refused repeated commands to drop his gun, but witnesses say he was unarmed.

“It’s not clear what the body cameras worn by three officers who were present during the shooting may have captured,” the AP adds.

North Carolina has a law that takes effect Oct. 1 requiring a judge to approve releasing police video, and Chief Putney said he doesn’t release video when a criminal investigation is ongoing.

Watch below:

There has also been two different versions of exactly who shot Scott. The police were quick to announce that black police officer Brentley Vinson shot him to death. Eyewitness Taheshia Williams, however, says that a white police officer fired the fatal shot.

Al-Jazeera’s Alan Fisher interviewed Williams at the scene. Here’s her eyewitness account:

He got out the car with his hands up because the police told him to get out the car. He got out the car. The book fell off his lap, the book he was reading. He got out the car and then he walked around his car to the back of his car. When he walked back there, when his wife was running down saying, ‘No, stop, don’t do that,’ by the time she got right here to where his car was, they had shot that man four times.

Watch below:

The streets were mostly quiet Thursday morning following a night of violent protests, but Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Duke Energy all told employees not to venture into North Carolina’s largest city after Gov. Pat McCrory declared a state of emergency Wednesday night and called in the National Guard after the police chief said he needed the help. The North Carolina National Guard arrived at a Charlotte armory early Thursday, and Guard vehicles left the armory about 8 a.m.

Federal help also is on the way, with the Justice Department sending to Charlotte a team of trained peacekeepers designed to help resolve community conflict. The department’s Community Relations Service has been deployed to other cities roiled by tense flare-ups between police and residents.

Putney said 44 people were arrested in connection with Wednesday night’s protests. Three civilians were injured, one critically, and several law enforcement agents were injured.

Watch Putney’s entire Thursday press conference below:

| WBTV Charlotte

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