Charlotte: Protests and looting rocked the US city of North Carolina city in the early Wednesday, following the fatal police shooting of a black man, with a dozen officers and several demonstrators injured in the violence.
According to media reports, several hundred people gathered to protest the shooting of 43-year-old Keith Lamont Scott, who was African-American, as was the officer who killed him. The shooting was the latest in a string involving black men killed at the hands of police, which has fueled outrage nationwide.
Police said 16 officers and several demonstrators were injured in the clashes.
The shooting occurred at 4:00 pm Tuesday in the parking lot of an apartment complex in Charlotte after officers arrived in search of a suspect wanted for arrest, police said.
They spotted a man with a handgun — later identified as Scott — exit and then reenter a vehicle, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police chief Kerr Putney told journalists.
Officers approached the man and loudly commanded him to get out and drop the weapon, at which point Scott exited the vehicle armed, according to police. “He stepped out, posing a threat to the officers, and officer Brentley Vinson subsequently fired his weapon, striking the subject,” the police chief said.
Putney added, however, that he did not know that Scott “definitively pointed the weapon specifically towards an officer.”
Different accounts
Scott’s relatives told local media that he was not carrying a gun, but had a book in his hands when he was gunned down, which police disputed.
“I can tell you a weapon was seized. A hand gun,” Putney said. “I can also tell you we did not find a book that has been made reference to.”
Demonstrations began in Charlotte on Tuesday evening and as news of the shooting spread, protesters gathered, carrying signs that read “Black Lives Matter” and chanting “No justice, no peace!” Putney said the situation turned violent within about two hours with “agitators” damaging police vehicles and throwing rocks at police officers. — AFP
