Culture

Watch The Raw Moment A Charlotte Protester Confronts Police After An Officer-Involved Shooting

On Monday, tensions escalated nationwide after police in Tulsa, Oklahoma released footage of an officer shooting the unarmed Terence Crutcher. And on Tuesday night in Charlotte, North Carolina, a large group of protesters gathered after an officer-involved shooting that killed Keith Lamont Scott. In this video, a Charlotte protester confronted police while shouting, “I love my country!” and “I don’t hate you, man!” to an officer. The raw emotions on display easily explain why this video went viral.

Some key facts are in dispute surrounding this incident, but local news station WBTV confirms how Scott was shot and killed on Tuesday. CNN reports that officers from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department were searching through an apartment complex for a man with an outstanding warrant. They saw a different man, Scott, exit his car with a firearm. The CMPD stated that Scott was “armed with a firearm and posed an imminent deadly threat to the officers who subsequently fired their weapon striking the subject.” The firearm in question was recovered from the scene, and Scott was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. CMPD Officer Brentley Vinson, who fired the fatal shot, has been placed on administrative leave.

Conflicting information came from Scott’s daughter, who streamed a viral Facebook Live video, which The Grio has posted with discussion here. The daughter stated that Scott was unarmed during the incident. She claimed that Scott — who she said was disabled — was reading a book in his car when he was tasered and shot at least four times. The CMPD hasn’t yet issued a statement about these allegations.

On Tuesday night, Associate Editor Adam Rhew of Charlotte Magazine took this photo of police dressed in riot gear standing in a cloud of tear gas. Rhew also posted several other photos from the evening on his Twitter page.

Alex Giles of WBTV posted this photo of gas being shot into the crowd of protesters.

In this video, protesters can be seen standing atop a police vehicle and rocking it back and forth. They also started a fire on the highway.

CMPD reports on Twitter that at least a dozen officers were injured during Tuesday night’s protests.

Savion Wright posts a photo of a black officer appearing to cry.

https://twitter.com/SavionWright/status/778446837967491073

A longer video of the protest video at the top of this post can be seen here.

(Via WBTV, CNN & Charlotte Observer)