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Violence erupts in US after black man gunned down
Protests and looting rocked a North Carolina city yesterday, following the fatal police shooting of a black man, with a dozen officers and several demonstrators injured in the violence. It was the latest in a string of black men killed at the hands of police, which has fuelled outrage nationwide.
Several hundred people gathered to protest about the shooting of Keith Lamont Scott, 43.
Demonstrations began late on Tuesday and grew through much of the night near a flat complex in the city of Charlotte, where the shooting occurred.
As news of the shooting spread, protesters gathered, carrying signs that read “Black Lives Matter” and chanting “No justice, no peace!”
Later in the night, some protesters set fires, blocking a major road, while others set trucks ablaze.
The violence comes just days after another police shooting, captured on video, of an unarmed black man in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Together, they are the latest in a series of recent police shootings that have left the African-American community demanding law enforcement reforms.
News reports said the officer in Tuesday ’s shooting, Brentley Vinson, had been put on paid leave.
WSOC-TV reported that the Charlotte shooting had occurred as Vinson and other officers were searching for a suspect on an outstanding arrest warrant.
Police encountered Scott – who was not the person they were seeking – in a car parked at the building.
“All we know [is] they were in the apartment complex parking lot,” Charlotte-Mecklenberg police chief Kerr Putney said.
“This subject gets out with a weapon. They engage him, and one of the officers felt a lethal threat and fired his weapon because of that,” he said.
Scott’s relatives said, however, he had not been carrying a gun, but had a book in his hands.
The fatal shooting in Tulsa on Friday of Terence Crutcher was recorded by police car dashboard cameras and a police helicopter camera.
Tulsa police chief Chuck Jordan, in releasing the footage to the public, called it disturbing and “very difficult to watch”. In the video, the 40-year-old Crutcher is seen with his hands up and leaning against his car.
He is then shot once by officer Betty Shelby, and falls to the ground. Another officer also fires his stun gun.
“We will achieve justice in this case,” the Tulsa police chief told a news conference. “We will do the right thing. We will not cover anything up.”