214th black person killed by US police

CHARLOTTE: Largely peaceful protests dwindled early on Friday in Charlotte, North Carolina, as police chose not to enforce a curfew prompted by two nights of riots after a black man was shot dead by a police officer.

A crowd of hundreds gathered, chanted and marched for a third successive night in the city of about 810 000 people, demanding justice for Keith Scott, 43, who was shot dead by a black police officer in the parking lot of an apartment complex on Tuesday afternoon.

Scott’s death is the latest to stir passions in the US over the police use of force against black men. It has stirred broad debate on race and justice and given rise to the Black Lives Matter movement.

He was the 214th black person killed by US police this year out of an overall total of 821, according to Mapping Police Violence, another group created from the protest movement. There is no national-level government data on police shootings.

In an interview on Friday, Justin Bamberg, one of the lawyers who is representing Scott’s family, said the video showed the 43-year-old had not made any aggressive moves towards the police.