The friends and family of Keith Lamont Scott, the Charlotte man killed by police this week, portray him as a “family man” and “likable.” This may be true.

However, Scott also had a long police record that included gun violations. Buried deep in this Charlotte Observer story, we learn:

Scott was convicted in April 2004 of a misdemeanor assault with a deadly weapon charge in Mecklenburg County. Other charges stemming from that date were dismissed: felony assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, and misdemeanors assault on a child under 12, assault on a female and communicating threats. In April 2015 in Gaston County Court, Scott was found guilty of driving while intoxicated. In 1992, Scott was charged in Charleston County, S.C., with ​several different crimes on different dates, including carrying ​a concealed weapon​ (not a gun), simple assault and contributing to ​the delinquency of a minor. ​He pleaded guilty to ​all charges. Scott also was charged with aggravated assault in 1992​ and assault with intent to kill in 1995. Both charges were reduced, but the disposition of the case​s​ is unclear.

(Emphasis added)

And there is this:

According to Bexar County, Texas, records, Scott was sentenced in March 2005 to 15 months in a state jail for evading arrest. In July of that year, records show, he was sentenced to seven years in prison on a conviction of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. A Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman said Scott completed his sentence and was released from prison in 2011.

(Emphasis added)

None of this means, necessarily, that Scott had a gun when the police killed him or that the police reasonably felt threatened by him. But Scott’s record makes it all the more unfair to assume — as the Charlotte protesters do, explicitly or implicitly — that claims by the police that he was armed and potentially dangerous are untrue.