Twelve police officers have been injured during protests and looting in North Carolina that broke out after a police officer (Picture above left) fatally shot a black man , Keith Lamont Scott (Right). Brentley Vinson has been identified as the officer who shot Scott. Also black, he has been placed on paid on administrative leave.
Scott, 43, a disabled father-of-seven, was shot by a police officer at The Village at College Downs in Charlotte at about
4pm on Tuesday. Charlotte police had gone to the complex around
4pm looking for a suspect with an outstanding warrant when they saw Scott inside a car.
The police department issued a statement saying the officers fired their weapons after considering Scott, who was not the suspect but a threat, claiming that he was holding a gun.
“Officers saw Scott get out of the car with a gun and then get back in. When they approached, Scott exited the car with the gun again. At that point, officers deemed the man a threat and at least one fired a weapon.”
This was however refuted by his family. Scott’s brother and sister said he didn’t have a gun and was reading a book in his car while waiting for his son to be dropped off from school. Scott’s brother told reporters:
‘He was waiting in the car for his son to get from school. The police came with no uniform to determine he was police or not and he just jumped out and yelled “gun” and shot him. I think he shot him four times, I’m not sure, but he’s dead.’
Scott’s daughter Lyric Scott also live streamed the aftermath of the shooting on Facebook. In the video, she said that her father was parked and reading a book in his car while waiting for a school bus to drop off his son. That the officers tasered and then shot him four times. ‘My daddy didn’t do nothing. They just pulled up undercover’ she said.
Scott, was taken to Carolina’s Medical Center, pronounced dead and the protests gained momentum. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department revealed that demonstrators were destroying marked police vehicles and approximately 12 officers had been injured, including one who was hit in the face with a rock. People gathered to protest with some setting fires blocking a major road, and others setting trucks ablaze. Some stole boxes from trucks before police used flash grenades in an attempt to disperse them while another group of protesters tried to break into a Walmart store before police arrived.
Some angry protesters were heard yelling ‘Black lives matter,’ and ‘Hands up, don’t shoot!’ . They held up a sign saying ‘Stop Killing Us’ and ‘it was a book’, making reference to the object. The crowd however reportedly began to disperse after police deployed six to eight cans of tear gas.
Detectives have also recovered a firearm at the scene and are interviewing witnesses.
More photos below…
late Keith Lamont Scott pictured with his wife
Source and Images: LIB, Facebook
