Protesters block roads on third night of unrest as Scott family says police videos of shooting sparks ‘more questions than answers’

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Protesters and police in Charlotte confronted each other for a third evening, on Thursday night, in a roaming demonstration as the family of police shooting victim Keith Scott said it still had “more questions than answers” after privately viewing footage of his killing.

Police used tear gas to disperse a crowd of hundreds on the John Belk freeway, where they had blocked traffic. The clash led the mayor, Jennifer Roberts, to declare a midnight curfew – a step she had declined to take earlier in the day.

As the evening began, a small crowd of people – nothing like the crowds of Wednesday night – gathered in Charlotte’s Uptown neighborhood. Their main rallying cry was “release the tapes,” a reference to police video of Scott’s death on Tuesday, shot by officers in the parking lot of the apartment complex where he lived on the east side of town.

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Meanwhile, Scott’s family was shown in private two police body camera videos of the officer shooting him dead.

Justin Bamberg, an attorney for the family, said in the statement: “While police did give him several commands, he did not aggressively approach them or raise his hands at members of law enforcement at any time.

“It is impossible to discern from the videos what, if anything, Mr Scott is holding in his hands,” the statement said, adding that Scott’s hands were by his sides and he was slowly walking backward.

On Thursday, police chief Kerr Putney told a news conference that the video of Scott does show the 43-year-old was holding a gun and not a book, as the family has claimed. “I can tell you we did not find a book.” But, he said, it did not clearly show Scott pointing the gun at anyone.

Later Putney changed his message, saying that on the video he could not see Scott’s hands at all.

Barack Obama said on Friday morning that recent reports of unarmed African Americans being shot by police “should be a source of concern for all Americans”.

In an interview with ABC’s Good Morning America, the president declined to address specific cases, although he noted that the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, had invited the Justice Department to investigate the shooting there.

Obama said protesters expressing their frustrations by looting or breaking glass were not going to “advance the cause” of racial justice. He added: “My hope is that in days to come, people in the community pull together and say, ‘How do we do this the right way?’ ... It’s important for all of us to say we want to get this right.”

On the streets overnight, police took a decidedly different approach Thursday night to the night before; instead of a large, central phalanx, they and National Guardsmen stood in small groups on every street corner. They wore no riot gear, and kept a low profile, letting the crowds march throughout the neighborhood.

At the site where protester Justin Carr, 26, was injured during the upheaval Wednesday night, visitors left tokens memorial, lit candles and sang.

There were signs the authorities were ready for violence. Helicopters swung around the downtown sky and Humvee vehicles stayed tucked on side streets. But on the central downtown blocks, police rode in golf carts and on bicycles.

Several local pastors engaged people on the sidewalks, interrupting arguments that seemed near overheating.

Eunice Lowe, 61, had a close-up view on both nights. She lives on a bench near the intersection of Tryon and Trade streets, where she put out a small hand-painted Black Lives Matter sign.

“Last night I thought I might go deaf,” she said, referring to the flash-bang projectiles and tear gas canisters.

She was saddened to hear that Carr, who was injured on her block, had died. “No, no,” she said.

As the crowd dissolved downtown on Thursday night, a new one gathered on the freeway, where protesters stopped cars. Eventually police in riot gear formed a wall between the protesters and the roadway.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Riot police push protesters off the highway during another night of protests over the police shooting of Keith Scott in Charlotte, North Carolina. Photograph: Mike Blake/Reuters

Details of what happened to Carr have been muddled, with conflicting explanations from city officials. At first Putney said the man had died Wednesday night, and then that announcement was reversed, and then remade on Thursday.

The city also said the man, whose name had not been released, was injured during a “civilian on civilian” shooting. But that explanation seemed increasingly tenuous by Thursday afternoon.

“There was no fight,” said Eddie Thomas, an attorney and Charlotte public defender. He was at the intersection in question to observe interactions between police and the public, he said. “There was no issue between protesters. It just didn’t happen.”

Thomas’s account agrees with what other witnesses claimed to see. “I saw the police shoot that man almost point blank with my own eyes,” Jimmy James Tyson wrote on Facebook afterward. “Police shot him close range in the side of the head with a rubber bullet.”