USA TODAY International Edition
Videos of Charlotte shooting released
Police chief relents, says they no longer pose threat to probe
Against a backdrop CHARLOTTE of five days of protests, Charlotte’s police chief reversed his position Saturday and decided to immediately release video footage of the fatal shooting Tuesday of Keith Lamont Scott.
The dashboard camera from an arriving police car shows officers surrounding Scott’s car. Scott exits and steps backward away from his car at the 48- second mark in the video, as officers repeatedly yell, “Drop the gun.”
At the 54- second mark, shots are fired and Scott falls to the ground, as officers surround Scott out of dashboard- camera range. At the 1: 31 mark, an officer announces over the radio, “We got shots fired. One suspect down.”
The video ends after 2 minutes, 10 seconds.
The shaky body cam video is 1 minute, 8 seconds in length, showing an officer circling Scott’s car. The picture picks up on Scott on the ground at 26 seconds as an officer yells for handcuffs. Scott’s handcuffed hands can be seen with blood and the sound of painful moaning can be heard.
An officer attending asks for medical equipment and says, “We need to hold the wound.” The video then stops.
The police report stated that two plain- clothes officers were sitting in their unmarked police car preparing to serve an arrest warrant when Scott pulled up in his white SUV. The officers said Scott rolled what they believed to be a marijuana “blunt.” A short time later, an officer observed Scott hold a gun up.
“Due to the combination of illegal drugs and the gun Mr. Scott had in his possession, officers decided to take enforcement action for public safety concerns,” the report states. Officers departed “to outfit themselves with marked duty vests and equipment that would clearly identify them as police officers.”
“The officers immediately identified themselves as police of-
“Do those actions, do those precious seconds, justify this shooting?” Justin Bamberg, one of the attorneys for the Scott family
ficers and gave clear, loud and repeated verbal commands to drop the gun,” the report states. Scott repeatedly ignored those commands, even after leaving the car.
Officer Brentley Vinson, the officer who fatally shot Scott, “per- ceived Mr. Scott’s actions and movements as an imminent physical threat to himself and the other officers” and fired his service weapon, the report stated.
Justin Bamberg, one of the lawyers for the Scott family, said that many questions need to be answered.
“Do those actions, do those precious seconds, justify this shooting? That is the most important question,” said Bamberg.
Authorities previously declined to release the footage, arguing it could jeopardize the integrity of the investigation of the shooting.