Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Kerr Putney released the videos Saturday after a tumultuous week of protests and two nights of street violence spurred by the shooting.
In the dashboard video, a police SUV can be seen pulling into the parking lot where Scott’s white SUV is parked. An officer in a red shirt is visible pointing his weapon at Scott’s vehicle, whose tinted windows are up.
In a deadly tableau lasting about three seconds, Scott, surrounded by officers at varying distances, then opens his door, steps out, turns and walks backward, hands at his side. Four shots are heard and he falls.
In neither video is the resolution good enough to show whether Scott was holding a weapon, nor does either show the officer firing at him.
A body cam on another officer at the scene shows Scott emerging from the SUV, then lying in the parking lot seconds later. Police handcuff him while Scott’s wife can be heard yelling at police, “He better be alive!”
Scott drew the attention of officers who were trying to serve an arrest warrant on an unrelated suspect at the Village at College Downs apartment complex in University City because they saw him rolling marijuana in his vehicle, Putney said Saturday.
Police were going to let it go and continue on their original mission until an officer spotted a weapon in the vehicle, Putney said.
“It was not lawful for him to possess a firearm,” Putney said. “There was a crime he committed and the gun exacerbated the situation.”
Officer Brentley Vinson, who Putney said fired four shots at Scott, was not wearing a body cam, so his visual perspective was not part of the footage. Putney said that body cameras are being rolled out across the department and not all tactical officers have them yet.
Putney said the footage supports the larger fabric of evidence in the case, which includes accounts from officers at the scene, forensics and interviews with witnesses.
He said he has found nothing to indicate that Vinson acted inappropriately, given the totality of the circumstances, and he does not think his officers broke the law that day.
They were, he said, reacting to what appeared to be an imminent threat.
“At every encounter, people can make a decision to follow lawful, loud verbal commands and avert some things like this,” he said.
H/T – CharlotteObserver
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