“We release it when we believe there is a compelling reason,” he said.

Until they viewed the videos on Thursday afternoon, Mr. Scott’s relatives had said they were uncertain whether they should be released to the public, according to Mr. Bamberg.

While the family members differed with the police on some major points about the videos, they seemed to be in agreement with Chief Putney on one aspect. “It is impossible to discern from the videos what, if anything, Mr. Scott is holding in his hands,” they said in a statement.

Earlier in the day, Chief Putney said, “The video does not give me absolute, definitive visual evidence that would confirm that a person is pointing a gun.” He added later that he could not see Mr. Scott’s hands. But the chief, speaking at a news conference, said that eyewitness accounts and other evidence suggested that Mr. Scott was holding a pistol at the time he was shot, and that a weapon had been found at the scene.

Mr. Scott was black — as is the officer who shot him, Brentley Vinson — and his death added to a long list of killings of black men at the hands of law enforcement that had rocked cities and spurred protests around the country, bolstering claims of racial bias in policing.

On Thursday, a white officer in Tulsa, Okla., was charged with manslaughter in the fatal shooting an unarmed black man last week — a case in which startling police video was released within days of the encounter.