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Charlotte police say they warned Keith Scott to drop gun before shooting

This article is more than 7 years old

Police chief Kerr Putney says black 43-year-old was shot dead because he posed a threat: ‘The story’s a little bit different as to how it’s been portrayed’

Charlotte’s police chief said on Wednesday that officers gave a man numerous clear warnings to drop a handgun before fatally shooting him, at a news conference following a night of clashes on the streets of the North Carolina city that left 16 officers injured.

Kerr Putney, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police chief, said officers were searching for a suspect on Tuesday when they saw 43-year-old Keith Lamont Scott exit a vehicle with a handgun, and mistook him for the wanted man.

He said the officers told Scott, who was black, to drop his gun and that he got out of the vehicle a second time still carrying the gun.

He said the man was shot because he potentially posed a threat, but added that it was unclear whether he at any point pointed the weapon at police. A weapon was recovered by detectives at the scene.

“It’s time to change the narrative, because I can tell you from the facts that the story’s a little bit different as to how it’s been portrayed so far, especially through social media,” the police chief said.

The police version is at odds with that of Scott’s family, who have insisted that he was disabled, sitting in his car reading a book, and had no gun. “He sits in the shade, reads his book and waits on his kid to get off the bus,” Scott’s sister told reporters. “He didn’t have no gun, he wasn’t messing with nobody.”

In a video posted to Facebook Live from the scene, Scott’s daughter Lyric can be heard yelling at investigators on the scene not to plant a weapon in Scott’s car. “Because that’s what the fuck y’all do,” she said.

Both presidential nominees weighed in on the killings on Wednesday. Hillary Clinton called the shootings “very upsetting” and urged policing reforms to make the job safer for communities and officers.

“There’s still a lot we don’t know yet about what happened in both incidents but we do know that we have two more names to add to a long list of African Americans killed by police officers,” Clinton said during a speech in Orlando. “It’s unbearable and it needs to become intolerable.”

She also noted officers were targeted in Philadelphia last week and during the protests over Scott’s death in Charlotte on Tuesday night.

The Republican nominee said he was “very troubled” by the shooting in Tulsa and questioned the officer’s state of mind.

“I don’t know what she was thinking but I’m very troubled by that ... Now, did she get scared? Was she choking? What happened? Now, maybe people that choke, people that do that, maybe can’t be doing what they’re doing,” he said.

As protests swelled on Tuesday night, police used teargas in an attempt to disperse crowds heard yelling “black lives matter” and “Hands up, don’t shoot!” One person held up a sign saying “stop killing us”; another sign said: “It was a book.”

The family planned a news conference later on Wednesday in the neighborhood where the shooting occurred.

Putney confirmed that there was body camera footage from a few of the officers at the scene but said the police department would not be releasing footage until after the investigation was complete. A criminal and internal investigation was under way, Putney said.

The North Carolina chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union urged Charlotte police to release any footage of the shooting. The ACLU noted that a new North Carolina law restricting release of such footage does not take effect until 1 October. That new law says footage from police body or dashboard cameras cannot be released publicly without a court order.

The US attorney general, Loretta Lynch, said Scott’s killing and that of Terence Crutcher in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Friday highlighted, “in the most vivid and painful terms, the very real divisions that persist between law enforcement and communities of color”. The justice department has opened a civil rights investigation into Crutcher’s death.

BJ Murphy, an outspoken leader of the Nation of Islam, called for an economic boycott of the city. He said that if “black lives don’t matter, black money shouldn’t matter”.

The officer who shot Scott, Brently Vinson, has been placed on administrative leave as is standard procedure in such cases. Vinson, who is also black, has been with the department for two years.

Police spokesman Keith Trietley said in a statement that Charlotte police officers had gone to an apartment complex on the city’s north-east side about 4pm looking for a suspect with an outstanding warrant when they saw Scott – who was not the suspect they were looking for – inside a car.

Officers said they saw Scott get out of the car with a gun and then get back in, Trietley said. When officers approached, the man exited the car with the gun again. At that point, officers deemed the man a threat and at least one fired a weapon, he said.

Scott was taken to Carolinas medical center and pronounced dead.

Protests broke out after the shooting, with authorities using teargas to disperse protesters. Clashes left 16 officers with minor injuries in North Carolina’s largest city and shut down part of a highway. One officer was hit in the face with a rock. All have now been discharged from the hospital.

The protests continued into early Wednesday morning, when TV footage showed dozens of demonstrators on Interstate 85 apparently looting semi-trucks and setting their contents on fire on the highway.

Photos and TV video showed police firing teargas to break up the crowd. Some officers were in riot gear. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg police department tweeted that demonstrators were destroying marked police vehicles.

By 5am on Wednesday, the streets were quiet with no protesters in sight and I-85 was moving again. Broken glass and rocks littered the ground where a police car had been vandalized. Less than five miles away, wooden pallets barricaded the entrance of a Walmart that had apparently been looted.

Charlotte’s mayor, Jennifer Roberts, appealed for calm and tweeted that “the community deserves answers”.

The unrest in Charlotte came just hours after another demonstration in Tulsa, Oklahoma, over the shooting there of an unarmed black man by police.

In Tulsa, hundreds of people rallied outside police headquarters calling for the firing of police officer Betty Shelby, who shot the 40-year-old Crutcher on Friday during a confrontation in the middle of a road that was captured on police dashcam and helicopter video.

Shelby’s attorney has said Crutcher was not following the officers’ commands and that Shelby was concerned because he kept reaching for his pocket as if he were carrying a weapon. An attorney representing Crutcher’s family says Crutcher committed no crime and gave officers no reason to shoot him.

Local and federal investigations into that shooting continue.

Last Wednesday, 13-year-old Tyre King, who like Scott and Crutcher was black, was shot and killed by a police officer in Columbus, Ohio, responding to a report of an armed robbery.

More on this story

More on this story

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  • Charlotte protests: governor of North Carolina declares state of emergency

  • Protests over police shooting in Charlotte – in pictures

  • Charlotte protesters describe shooting of man during demonstration – video

  • This photo from Charlotte tells you all you need to know about policing in America

  • Charlotte police: Keith Scott warned repeatedly to drop gun – video

  • Charlotte, North Carolina: police and protesters clash after fatal shooting – video

  • Protests erupt in Charlotte after fatal police shooting

  • Protesters clash with police in Charlotte after fatal shooting of Keith Scott

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