Police in Charlotte, North Carolina, have released officer bodycam and dashcam footage of a controversial shooting of a black man on Tuesday. They also released pictures of a handgun and marijuana that police say Keith Lamont Scott possessed.
Calls for the footage to be released increased in the four days since Scott was shot and comes after the release of footage shot by his wife. The family of Scott says he was carrying a book and not a gun, BBC reported.
Charlotte police chief, Kerr Putney, told reporters the victim was “absolutely in possession of a handgun”.
The dashcam footage released on Saturday shows Scott getting out of his car and walking backwards with his hands down. It is unclear if there is anything in his hands. Four shots are heard and he falls to the ground.
The bodycam footage shows Scott outside his car with his hands down but does not show the moment of the shooting.
The BBC’s Laura Bicker in Washington, who has seen the video, says it does not clear up the key question of whether Scott had a gun, or if he pointed a gun at police.
The lawyer for Scott’s family, Justin Bamberg, told reporters that the latest footage only raised more questions about the incident. He said the video did not show a gun in Scott’s hand.
Speaking at a press conference earlier, Putney released the first specific details from police on a case that has been mired in controversy and uncertainty.
Putney said Scott, 43, was in possession of marijuana and that he had committed another crime, which the police chief would not elaborate on.
He said that the officers who confronted Scott were conducting surveillance when they spotted marijuana in the victim’s car and subsequently saw a gun.
In a video released on Friday, filmed by Scott’s wife, she can be heard telling officers repeatedly that he does not have a weapon.
Putney said that the bodycam footage contained “no definitive visual evidence that the two videos have been made public, one filmed by an officer’s bodycam and another by a patrol vehicle dashcam”.
Putney said the officer who shot Scott was not wearing a bodycam, because not all Charlotte police tactical teams wore them.
The officer who fatally shot the father-of-seven was identified as Brently Vinson, who is also African-American.
Quizzed about claims that police were not at the location because of Scott and encountered him randomly, Putney said: “They were intentionally detaining this man. It was to take this man off the streets.” He said that that police would release DNA evidence as well as the footage.
Asked whether any officers would be charged, he said, “No officers are being charged by me at this point, but there is another investigation underway”.
The shooting is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Scott’s family claim that he suffered from a brain injury brought on by a motorbike accident.
Critics have accused Charlotte authorities of a lack of transparency over the delay in releasing the footage, compared with the swift action taken after a police shooting in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where a white officer has been charged.
