Tonya Maxwell and Bryan Alexander

USA TODAY Network

CHARLOTTE — Against a backdrop of five days of protests, Charlotte's police chief reversed his position Saturday and decided to immediately release video footage of the fatal shooting of Keith Lamont Scott.

The dashboard camera from an arriving police car shows officers surrounding Scott’s car. Scott exits and steps backwards away from the car, his hands at his side, 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 at the 2:10 second mark.

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.

A case update that accompanied the video provided the police report of the incident. It stated that two plain-clothes officers were sitting inside of their unmarked police car preparing to serve an arrest warrant when Scott pulled up in his white SUV.

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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.”

Upon returning, the officers again witnessed Scott in possession of a gun.

“The officers immediately identified themselves as police officers and gave clear, loud and repeated verbal commands to drop the gun. Mr. Scott refused to follow the officers' repeated verbal commands,” the report states.

When another officer used his baton to breach the front passenger window, Scott exited, “while continuing to ignore officers’ repeated loud verbal commands to drop the gun,” according to the report.

Officer Brentley Vinson, the officer who fatally shot Scott, "perceived Mr. Scott’s actions and movements as an imminent physical threat to himself and the other officers. Officer Vinson fired his issued service weapon, striking Mr. Scott,” the report stated.

The report also featured pictures of the "gun, ankle holster and marijuana 'blunt' " in Scott's possession.

Justin Bamberg, one of the lawyers for the Scott family, said in a press conference directly after the video release 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.

Bamberg noted there was no "definitive evidence" of Scott holding a gun, adding "he’s not aggressively moving toward law enforcement officers, he’s doing the opposite. He’s passively stepping back."

Ray Dotch, Rakiya Scott’s brother, said at the press conference that the family was "delighted the videos were released for the goal of “unfiltered truth.”

"Unfortunately we are left with far more questions than we have answers," said Dotch. "It does not make sense to us how this incident resulted in the loss of life ... and it’s not clear in the videos that were released."

Dotch said that reports of Scott's character should not factor into the investigation.

"We shouldn’t have to humanize him in order for him to be treated fairly," said Dotch. "What we know and what you should know about him is that he was an American citizen who deserved better."

Authorities previously declined to release the footage, arguing it could jeopardize the integrity of the investigation of Tuesday's shooting that has been taken over by the State Bureau of Investigation. Charlotte Police Chief Kerr Putney told reporters at a news conference that he no longer had those concerns.

The fatal encounter was captured by police dash cameras and body cameras, but authorities, as well as the Scott family, said it is inconclusive regarding how events unfolded.

Putney emphasized he was not swayed by the protests or the release Friday of dramatic cell phone video of the shooting made by Scott's wife.

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory said in a statement that he agreed with the decision to release the footage.

Asked if the video that will be released shows the 43-year-old Scott, a father of seven, pointing a weapon at officers, Putney reiterated that it alone does not.

"There is no definitive, visual evidence that he had a gun in his hand, you see something in the hand, and that he pointed it at an officer," Putney said. "But what we do see is compelling evidence when you put all the pieces together that support that."

Putney also indicated the officers, who had gone to the apartment complex where the shooting occurred to serve a warrant, observed Scott — who was in his vehicle — breaking the law by having marijuana in his possession.

When, according to the police, Scott produced a weapon, the officers drew theirs. "There was a crime that he had committed that caused the encounter," he said. "And the gun exacerbated that situation."

Putney also said his officers didn’t break the law but noted the State Bureau of Investigation is continuing its investigation. “Officers are absolutely not being charged by me, but again, there’s another investigation ongoing,” he said.

In the harrowing family video taken by Scott's wife, Rakeyia, she is heard trying to convince police not to shoot her husband. While it does not show the fatal shooting itself, it is punctuated with shouts by police to Keith Scott to drop his gun, and is followed by four shots in rapid succession in the fatal shooting.

During the two-minute video released Friday, Rakeyia Scott, near hysteria, can be heard shouting, "Don't you shoot him."

The Scott family and some neighborhood witnesses claimed Scott did not have a gun, but was sitting in his car reading a book while awaiting the arrival of his son on a school bus when police approached.

Police rejected that claim, saying he was armed and that his weapon was confiscated at the scene.

Earlier Saturday, several hundred people carrying signs and chanting slogans gathered under a hot afternoon sun in a park in central Charlotte on the fifth day of demonstrations demanding the release of police video showing the fatal shooting of Keith Lamont Scott.

Some wore shirts reading “Black Lives Matter” and “support the Charlotte movement” while others milled around a makeshift stage awaiting speakers. The crowd included people handing out bottles of water in the 91-degree heat. Two women offered to register people to vote.

Among protesters gathering beside a large oak tree in Marshall Park was Temako McCarthy, whose son died in 2011 after being hit with a Taser by a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer. A federal civil jury later determined the officer used excessive force.

At a rally of civic groups, Rev. Corine Mack, president of the Charlotte chapter of the NAACP, said groups of activists and members of the local clergy have been meeting with the mayor and city council daily "pleading to release the tape, pleading for transparency, pleading to get it right."

"Since that time, we have decided we won't stop and we can't stop," she said, addressing the crowd with members of the clergy behind her.

She said the group, drawn from many faiths and ethnic backgrounds, has been working since the day of the shooting to try to head off violence.

"The clergy ... every day and every night have been on the street, marching, talking, loving and ensuring that each and every person wold go home safely," she said. "The citizens as well as the police."

Charlotte is the latest U.S. city to be shaken by protests and recriminations over the death of a black man at the hands of police, a list that includes Baltimore, Milwaukee, Chicago, New York and Ferguson, Mo.

This is "at best gross mishandling of a crime scene, or at worst a cover up and a conspiracy. There is anger unrest in our city which is legitimate,” Rev. Milton Alexander Williams, Jr. of Walls Memorial AME Zion Church said at Saturday's rally in Charlotte, encouraging a peaceful protest.

Demonstrators angry over the shooting marched Friday evening for the fourth night in a row, but the protests were largely peaceful. Protests on Tuesday and Wednesday turned violent, with demonstrators breaking windows and hurling objects at police who were outfitted with riot gear.

On Friday, a choir from The Citadel Church in Greensboro stood on a street corner singing spirituals for two hours, drawing a crowd of curious onlookers who were moved enough to clap along.

The Rev. Gregory Drumwright directed the choir of about two dozen, saying they wanted to be “vessels of peace, vessels of righteousness, not rage.”

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