Charlotte Police: Suspect Scott Told Several Times to Drop his Weapon

The Charlotte police chief is setting the story straight following the shooting of the suspect in Charlotte, that sparked two nights of violent riots where at least 16 officers were wounded.

Charlotte police gave the 43-year-old and African American male, Keith Lamont Scott multiple warnings to put down his gun before being forced to shoot him.

Scott’s family claimed he was reading a book in his vehicle when he was shot, but Police Chief Kerr Putney addressed this stating that Scott was in fact armed and no book was found at the scene.

According to the police, Scott exited his vehicle holding a handgun at an apartment complex in the northeast side of the city. After police found the suspect, he refused to lower his weapon. Then there were multiple demands to drop his weapon and when the suspect refused, a fellow African-American officer, who was undercover, shot him.

“The officers gave loud, clear verbal commands which were also heard by many of the witnesses. They were instructing the subject, once he got out of the vehicle, to drop the weapon… Mr. Scott exited his vehicle armed with a handgun as the officers continued to yell at him to drop it,” said Putney. “It’s time to change the narrative, because I can tell you from the facts that the story’s a little bit different as to how it’s been portrayed so far, especially through social media.” 

Putney made this statement in response to the hour-long video of a woman claiming to be Scott’s daughter after the shooting, whereas she said he had an unspecified disability, was unarmed, and merely reading a book. In the video, she appears to be at the scene of the shooting and she yells repeatedly at the officers.

However, she has yet to respond to Facebook messages from various media outlets and The Associated Press could not verify her claims.

Following the shooting, dozens of people gathered at the scene of the incident to protest. Quickly this escalated to a violent riot that lasted into Wednesday morning. 16 police officers tending to the riots were injured and some rioters were smashing patrol cars and throwing rocks at officers.

Then Wednesday evening, protestors gathered in two locations. One was a peaceful protest in a park, while downtown, the rioting got more violent due to a group of agitators.

“Go home and tell everyone violence is not the answer. The investigation is ongoing, it will be transparent,” said Jennifer Roberts, Charlotte’s mayor to the scores of protestors.  

North Carolina’s Governor Pat McCrory declared a state of emergency late Wednesday evening in Charlotte and has called in the National Guard to help the local police department.

“We cannot tolerate violence. We cannot tolerate the destruction of property and will not tolerate the attacks against our police officers that is occurring right now,” said McCrory to CNN Wednesday night.

Editor’s note: This is the legacy of Obama’s intentional race baiting and divisiveness. In this case, all evidence points to a man threatening police and being shot after many warnings. It has now become normal, even when a shooting is justified as in this case, for a community to destroy itself in protest. This doesn’t help anyone.