More violence flares over police shooting

Charlotte state of emergency after angry protesters take to streets for second night

ASECOND night of race-related clashes in Charlotte, North Carolina, has left one protester on life support, with the violence prompting the governor to declare a state of emergency.

Several hundred people taunted riot police late on Wednesday amid clashes in the city centre, a second night of unrest ignited by the fatal police shooting of a black man.

Governor Pat McCrory said on Twitter he was activating the National Guard and Highway Patrol officers to assist local law enforcement.

“We cannot tolerate violence. We cannot tolerate the destruction of property and will not tolerate the attacks towards our police officers that are occurring,” he said.

The protests were sparked by the death of Keith Lamont Scott, 43, fatally shot by police on Tuesday.

A protester was critically wounded and on life support, the city said, after erroneously reporting the person had died.

Authorities had said the protester was shot by a civilian and police did not open fire.

The evening started out with a peaceful vigil for Scott, but the atmosphere changed dramatically once demonstrators walked to the nearby police headquarters, where one protester pulled the American flag to the bottom of its staff.

By the time the protesters had walked the few blocks to uptown and encountered riot police, they were seething.

Some demonstrators stood on cars and hurled objects at police, who fired what appeared to be teargas, sending the protesters scattering.

Scott’s death is the latest in a string of police-involved killings of black men that have fuelled outrage across the US.

The violence in Charlotte came on the heels of another fatal police shooting of a black man, Terence Crutcher, last Friday in Tulsa. The Charlotte shooting took place at 4pm on Tuesday as officers searching for a suspect arrived in the parking lot of a block of flats.

They spotted a man later identified as Scott, who they said was holding a handgun as he exited and then re-entered a vehicle, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police chief Kerr Putney told journalists.

Officers commanded him to get out and drop the weapon. Scott exited the vehicle armed, according to police.

He was then shot by officer Brentley Vinson.

However, Putney did not know whether Scott “definitively pointed the weapon specifically toward an officer”.

Carrying a firearm is legal in North Carolina. Scott’s relatives said he was waiting for his young son at the school bus stop when police arrived.

He was not carrying a gun but a book, they said – which police disputed.

Anger was simmering in Charlotte earlier in the day, especially over the assertion that Scott had been armed.

Earlier on Wednesday evening, hundreds of protesters had marched to the Charlotte police headquarters.