As many of you are well aware, Keith Scott, a father of seven was shot and killed by Charlotte police on September 20, 2016.

The police claimed that Mr. Scott was holding a gun when he got out of his car, refused their orders to drop the alleged handgun, and had to be shot because he posed "an imminent, deadly threat" to them. The family has denied the claim that Scott was holding a gun. Charlotte Police Chief Putney has refused to release police video of the incident to the public, claiming he cannot do so under state law, though the ACLU has challenged his position. Chief Putney also claims that he has no evidence to show the shooting was unjustified, even though ...

[T]he videos he has seen don't show "absolute, definitive, visual evidence" that Scott pointed a gun at the officers. Justin Bamberg, an attorney for the Scott family who also watched the police videos, said they fail to prove that he was armed. Scott can be seen in the video calmly walking back after he was approached by police, according to Bamberg. "It is impossible to discern from the videos what, if anything, Mr. Scott is holding in his hands," he said in a statement.

An image of Mr Scott lying on the ground surrounded by police has been circulating on social media, which supporters of the police have claimed shows a handgun lying at the feet of Mr. Scott. Here is that image as posted on the website of The Charlotte Observer:

The image is blurred and not definitive in my mind, but Chief Putney himself has relied on this image to support his claim there was a gun at the scene of Scott's killing:

Putney said that the image, which police acquired through routine monitoring of social media, appeared to be genuine and un-retouched. It shows what appears to be a handgun on the pavement at Scott’s feet.

One thing I wish to point out. This image, which purports to show a gun a Keith Scott's feet, was taken after police had established a perimeter around the "crime scene" as you can can clearly see yellow police tape in the foreground between whoever took the picture and the police and Mr. Scott's body. It is unclear how much time has passed since Scott was shot and killed and this image was taken, but it seems apparent that this is not a picture of the scene.

Yesterday, the family of Mr. Scott released video from his wife's mobile phone, which was taken just prior to and after the shooting. It's a harrowing and frankly disturbing video, which can be viewed at NPR, at NBC and other news sites online, including the New York Times:

Ms. Scott left their apartment to bring Mr. Scott a cellphone charger, the lawyers said, when she saw the officers around him and began recording the scene on her phone. The Police Department has said that officers saw Mr. Scott, who was black, standing beside his S.U.V. holding a handgun, then saw him get into the vehicle. The video, which lasts 2 minutes 12 seconds, begins with shaking images of grass and the voice, apparently that of an officer, shouting, “Hands up!” Immediately, Ms. Scott said, “Don’t shoot him,” and began walking closer to the officers and Mr. Scott’s vehicle. “Don’t shoot him. He has no weapon. He has no weapon. Don’t shoot him.” An officer can then be heard yelling: “Gun. Gun. Drop the gun.” A police S.U.V. with lights flashing arrived, partly obscuring Ms. Scott’s view, and a uniformed officer got out. From that point, there are five officers, most of whom appeared to be wearing body armor over plain clothes, around Mr. Scott. “Don’t shoot him, don’t shoot him,” Ms. Scott pleaded, her voice becoming louder and more anxious. “He didn’t do anything.” Officers continued to yell “drop the gun” or some variation of it — at least 12 times in 38 seconds. “He doesn’t have a gun,” Ms. Scott said. “He has a T.B.I.” — an abbreviation for a traumatic brain injury the lawyers said Mr. Scott sustained in a motorcycle accident in November. “He’s not going to do anything to you guys. He just took his medicine.” “Drop the gun,” an officer screamed again as Ms. Scott tried to explain her husband’s condition. The officer then said he needed to get a baton. “Keith don’t let them break the windows. Come on out the car,” Ms. Scott said, as the video showed an officer approaching Mr. Scott’s vehicle.

What happens next is that you hear gunshots being fired at the 50 second mark of the video (as posted at NPR). Ms. Scott moved toward the death scene, and continues recording. Within seconds her video shows Mr. Scott on the ground surrounded by what appears to be four police officers, two of whom are bending over his body. It was at this point I stopped the video and took a screenshot at the 1:14 point, 24 seconds after you hear the gun shots that killed Keith Scott, her husband. Here is the image I captured as shown by Ms. Scott's cell phone:

Please take note that this image was taken moments after Keith Scott was gunned down, and before the Charlotte-Mecklenberg Police (CMPD) had secured the scene. Do you see anything that looks like a gun lying at Mr. Scott's feet? I do not. There is no image of any object, blurred or not, at Mr. Scott's feet, much less one that resembles a gun.

Now compare it again with the image taken after the scene was secured and yellow tape put up that has circulated widely on social media, and which police sympathizers have relied upon to prove Scott had a gun.

Now some have claimed that the angle of the two images, the one in Ms. Scott's video and the later image that shows the secured scene, are different, and that the officer wearing a red shirt was actually standing over the gun to protect it.

Jim Cavanaugh, a retired ATF agent, told MSNBC later on Friday that it seemed likely to him that the officer in the red shirt was intentionally standing right over the handgun to guard it.

So I took another screen capture from Ms. Scott's video at the 1:30 mark which gives the viewer a good look at where the officer in red was standing. Here it is:

Again I see no gun or other object between the legs of the officer in red, a mere 40 seconds after the shooting. Between 1:30 and 1:32 of Ms. Scott's video, the officer in red takes a step toward Keith Scott's body with his right foot. Look carefully. I see no gun or other object revealed to have been hidden between his feet after he makes that movement. At other times both before the 1:30 mark and after it, the same officer makes various movements away from that "standing position" that do not appear to support any theory that he was standing over the gun to protect it.

I've watched the video countless times now. Why the gun would need protection in any case, when so many officers were at the scene, is beyond me. I would think they would avoid standing near the weapon that supports their contention Keith Scott was holding a handgun when he was killed by one of their officers so as not to contaminate the scene. But what do I know?

To be honest, these two conflicting images of the scene, one before the yellow tape went up and one after, suggest to me two possibilities besides the official police narrative. Either the image purportedly made by a witness that is circulating on social media was faked or the gun was planted there by the police after the scene was secured and Ms. Scott no longer had access to record.

Now the CMPD and Chief Putney could help clear this up by releasing the videos they have of the officers' encounter with Keith Scott and by releasing any photographs of this alleged gun at the scene. Because if there was a gun at the scene, we know that the police forensics team took photographs of it, photographs that would be time stamped and dated, and which would show the exact position of the gun police claimed that Mr. Scott was "brandishing" at them, thus justifying the officer who fired his weapon at Keith Scott, killing him. To date however, they have refused to do so. Make of that what you will.