Charlotte Releases Police Video of Fatal Shooting of Keith Lamont Scott

The city of Charlotte has released some video of Tuesday’s fatal shooting of Keith Scott by a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer.

“What we are releasing are the objective facts,” Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Kerr Putney said Saturday, calling the shooting “a complex case.” He said the videos to be released will show Smith had a gun with him when he was shot.

As of Saturday evening, one video had been released.

“The footage itself will not create in anyone’s mind as to what this case represents… the footage only supports the other information” including forensic evidence and witness statements, Putney said.

Putney said that Scott was “absolutely in possession of a handgun.” He said that officers spotted marijuana in Scott’s car, which is what caused them to confront Scott.

Release of the videos had been a point of contention between police and Scott’s family, each of which have offered a differing version of events surrounding Tuesday’s fatal shooting of the 43-year-old father of seven.

In a Facebook post, North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory supported the decision.

“I have been assured by the State Bureau of Investigation that the release will have no material impact on the independent investigation since most of the known witnesses have been interviewed,” he wrote.

Release of the video followed another day of protests in which demonstrators gathered in Charlotte’s Marshall Park to demand release of the video.

North Carolina’s State Bureau of Investigation said Friday the city was free to release the video whenever it chose to do so.

On Friday, Scott’s wife released a cell phone video in which she is heard both trying to dissuade her husband from taking an unspecified action while also pleading with police not to shoot her husband.

Two different narratives of the incident have emerged.

Scott’s family has said that he was sitting in a parked car when confronted by police and that he had been reading a book. The family insists he was obeying police commands and was not acting in an aggressive manner when he was shot and killed by a black police officer.

Police have said Scott was in possession of a gun, and that he was acting in a manner that was threatening to the officers. Police said no book was recovered from the scene. A gun that was recovered reportedly has Scott’s fingerprints and DNA upon it.

Putney, who has said the video supported the police version of events but is not definitive on its own, has said the video “when taken in the totality of all the other evidence … supports what we’ve heard and the version of the truth that we gave about the circumstances that happened that led to the death of Mr. Scott.”

Putney emphasized that although the video was “compelling,” police cannot make their case based solely upon it.

Putney said the officers heard in the videos gave Scott “loud, clear, verbal commands.”

“Mr. Scott exited his vehicle armed with a handgun as the officers continued to yell at him to drop it,” Putney has said (For more from the author of “Charlotte Releases Police Video of Fatal Shooting of Keith Lamont Scott” please click HERE)

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