CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Nearly a year before Keith Lamont Scott was shot to death by the police in an episode that has convulsed this city, his wife applied for a protective order against him that said he owned a gun and had threatened to kill family members with it.

The document was filed by his wife, Rakeyia Scott, in October in District Court in Gaston County, which is near Charlotte. In a handwritten complaint, Ms. Scott asserted that Mr. Scott had “hit my 8-year-old in the head a total of three times with his fist” and “kicked me and threaten to kill us with his gun.”

Ms. Scott added, “He said he is a ‘killer’ and we should know that.”

After the Sept. 20 police shooting of Mr. Scott, the authorities said they had recovered a gun at the scene. Family members said he did not have a gun with him when he was shot.

Justin Bamberg, a lawyer for the Scott family, said in an interview on Tuesday that the assertions that Ms. Scott made in the court filing had no bearing on the question of whether police officers should have used lethal force in their confrontation with Mr. Scott in the parking lot of his Charlotte apartment complex.