Pressure rises to release Charlotte shooting tapes
Family of Keith Scott, a 43-year-old father of seven, on Friday released a two-minute video recorded by Scott’s wife, Rakeyia, including audio of her pleading with officers, ‘Don’t shoot him!’
SAN FRANCISCO: A fourth night of protests over the fatal shooting of a black man by police in Charlotte, North Carolina appeared to be ending peacefully early on Saturday morning as pressure grew on local police to release videos of the incident.
Several hundred protesters wound through the streets of Charlotte for hours on Friday night, led by demonstrators holding a banner calling on police to “release the tapes” of the fatal police shooting of a black man. There were no violent confrontations and police did not enforce a midnight curfew.
The family of Keith Scott, a 43-year-old father of seven, on Friday released a twominute video recorded by Scott’s wife, Rakeyia, including audio of her pleading with officers “Don’t shoot him! He has no weapon” as they yell at Scott, “Drop the gun!”
Scott’s death was the latest in a string of police killings of black men in America, which have unleashed protests and riots across the country and led to international criticism of the United States’ treatment of minorities.
A United Nations working group on Friday compared the killings to the lynching of black people by white mobs in the 19th and 20th centuries and recommended the US track police killings and end the practice of racial profiling.
Over the last two years, protesters have filled streets from Milwaukee to Minneapolis, from Ferguson, Missouri, to Baltimore. Protesters have also taken to the streets in Dallas and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where police officers were shot and killed by gunmen who claimed to be avenging the deaths of black men unjustly slain by law enforcement.
The footage by Scott’s wife captures the sound of four shots but does not show Scott being hit - nor does it make clear whether he had a weapon.
Charlotte police claim Scott was armed with a gun, which the family has denied.
Protesters, Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts, and even Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clin- ton have called for authorities to release police tapes.
The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, the state police leading the investigation, said that the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department had the legal authority to release the video and that it understood discussions to do so were under way between local officials.
However, CharlotteMecklenburg Police Chief Kerr Putney told reporters on Friday that releasing the footage now could harm the investigation led by the state.
“I know the expectation is that video footage can be the panacea and I can tell you that is not the case,” he said.
Putney said that he would eventually agree with the release of the video. “It’s a matter of when and a matter of sequence.”
Protesters in Charlotte gathered after nightfall in a small park and others chalked the names of police shooting victims from across the country on a street before starting a march through the city on Friday.