standing right by the passenger window. He would have had a close up view of what he was holding.

With his fingerprints and DNA.

That's pretty damning evidence right there.

I keep looking at the pics and videos and I don't see a gun. I watch the press conferences and I haven't heard the police chief say they recovered a gun with his prints and DNA on it. Where is this coming from?

Guess you're one of those who think open carry is only for whites.

When are racist, white cops going to learn to deescalate situations instead of going from zero to one hundred miles and hour which result in dead black bodies?

It's sickening and disgusting, as are the people who try to justify it.

And now seeing the body cam footage I am more convinced it was not.

That said I have little doubt he had a gun.

Perhaps you left a word out?

Nor do I think , though I now firmly believe he did have a gun, the shooting was justified.

Does that make it easier for you to read?

Nor do I think,,the shooting was justified.

N/t

It's been all over the local news.

... don't have trust of the community the BOTD

and people have been shot for "brandishing" cell phones. People don't want to drop them because they don't want them to break.

His wife said he had a PDA with him.

But yes, he could have had a gun stashed in the car for any number of reasons. He still didn't need to die. People with TBI often process things slowly and the cops weren't listening to the wife, so didn't allow for that.

That's the problem right there. They were so focused on exerting control that they simply didn't hear a word she said.

Regardless of if he has or does't have a gun. I actually think the wifes video in this case makes it pretty clear he had a gun. But as is far too common these days the police turn it into a life or death situation far too quickly.

I don't think there was any need to force him out of the car the way they did.

When you hear that, someone is about to be murdered in front of your eyes.

And then afterward.


"I was in fear for my life."

"I just wanted to go home to my family"


It is a bullshit license to murder when they feel like it. And it keeps working.

playing for the cameras.

It also amps up the situation among the other officers, if present. If Jim and Joe hear Bob yell "drop the gun", Jim and Joe now believe there's a gun and are ready to shoot.

It's similar to how they yell "quit resisting" as they pound the shit out of someone who lay unresponsive on the ground.

Signed, Dude with an advanced degree in Criminal Justice.

Cops should be issued bullet proof shields and move in without shooting.

This is nuts.

Clearly the right to have a gun does not apply if you are black

If the NRA was consistent, we'd see Wayne LaPierre giving a televised speech about how our police force needs to better understand our 2nd amendment rights!

The NRA made a turn toward racism in the 70's when Harlon Carter, an immigrant-murdering racist, took over! They never turned back.

They also know that most new gun buyers are scared white folks.

The plain clothed cops were there in unmarked cars to serve a warrant on someone suspected to be in the apartment complex. Scott was waiting in his truck for his child to get off the school bus. The cops say that Scott got out of his truck then got back in. I have not heard why they approached the truck but they may have gone over to ask him if he knew the wanted man.

The details of how and why the situation escalated are not clear. At some point the cops decided Scott had a weapon and he was not responding to their commands. That seems to be the point that the video taken by Scott's wife begins.

I've got to say if a group of men in pain clothes brandishing weapons were shouting various commands at me I would not want to get out of my truck. All that shouting and the display of weapons would upset and confuse me on a good day. I can remember the days following some of my concussions when I would not have been able to process all that chaos. But I have the advantage to be a white female so I've never been in danger of losing my life because I didn't follow confusing directions.

Even without a concussion I am sure I would be confused about what to do. If a bunch of men are pointing guns at you, it's counterintuitive to get out of the car and go closer to them.

He was in his car waiting for his daughter...but judging by how quick his wife got there, he lived very close to the bus stop...and later his daughter starts filming and giving commentary, sounding old enough to make it home from the bus stop by herself.

So why wait for the bus?

My wild ass guess is that somebody had made a specific threat to Scott or his family, and this is why he made a habit of waiting for the bus....which would explain why he was not not responsive to plainclothed police. He had no idea who they were.

She said she'd gone back inside to pick up her charger- took about three minutes.

1. Was Mr. Scott a threat to the officers that justified deadly force.

2. Is the police department or other officials attempting to cover up incompetency/wrongful death.

I think it will turn out that he had a gun, mainly because I saw a pretty good analysis of the wife's video yesterday by (Jim?) Cavanaugh on MSNBC, where he found the missing object (gun?) in a couple of frames of the video at the feet of the red shirted officer and in the same area where it was later seen in the previously released photo. The officers foot obscures it in the video but its there. But having a gun in Charlotte is allowed for law abiding citizens, so this does not in any way settle the question about whether deadly force was justified.

Both of the questions above can only be answered by making public all the video and all other relevant information. Why did the police confront him in the first place? Was it a case of mistaken identity? Did they assume he was a threat because of that?

Open carry refers to a gun in a holster or on a sling, not in your hands, and certainly not in your hands when confronted by the police.

that holding a gun is justification for deadly force. I would differ with opinion. I think there is a strong possibility that he was confused (and acting confused) and not acting in a threatening manner. In other words, that the officers made the wrong call by unloading their weapons at him. It may not be an important point to some people, but it is to me. It is important to people who believe that police all too often claim justification to fire based social bias instead of the reality of a threat.

....you just made a very bad mistake.

The response to the decision not to release the video while at the same time describing what it shows, has received a totally predictable public response. And that response is rooted in people's real life experiences with the police. This is bigger than whether in the end the use of deadly force was justified. Its about changing how a whole class of people are treated by the police.

....if the police tell you to drop your firearm it is in your best interest to do so. The facts in this case make take a little time to become clear.

... back

.. so FROM THE START he was no threat.

They had the wrong guy and doesn't want to admit it

Indeed time will tell. Another possibility has to with police officers' original reason for going over to that apartment complex -- to look for a suspect (who was a different person from Mr. Scott). They presumably mistakenly thought Keith Scott was that suspect (that, or started in on him regardless, but surely not). So maybe police assumed that Mr Scott had a gun if they thought he was this suspect. Keep in mind the police sent multiple cars, starting with unmarked cars, so maybe they had reason to believe the real suspect (again, who was not Mr Scott) was armed and dangerous.

Needless to say, the mistake made about Mr Scott being that suspect is incredibly sad.

Speaking of the unmarked cars, it has been pointed out that Mr. Scott may have been initially confused about what was happening, not realizing these were police and possibly thinking he was robbed. I do not have a link at my fingertips, but I believe it was from an MSNBC program that had multiple people discussing it. Anyway, I think it is a very good point raised. Whether or not Mr Scott had a gun, even if he had a gun, he may have been terrified and confused about what to do. And add to that his TBI-related communication difficulties.

Needless to say, the multiple misunderstandings and misjudgments of Mr. Scott are incredibly sad.

a gun. His wife said something about him having just taken his medicine. Was this medicine injected? could it have been /a syringe of some kind they saw and ASSUMED because he was black that it HAD to be a gun?

I don't know what really happened there any more than you do, but lots of things have been mistaken for being a gun. Cell phones, hair brushes, wallets, just about any foreign object in someone's hand.

Then the police react by shooting you anyway. If you bend down to place it on the ground, they shoot you because you didn't drop it. You can't win. Gun or no gun. Complying or not complying.

tracks the position of the object on the ground (the gun). There is probably only a 9 second window to throw a gun down, and the cop in the red would have to have done it.

When I looked at the video I thought I first saw the object at 1:17 of the wife's video. The gunshots were at 1:08. You see the location in the video before the gunshots, and you can't see the object.

The object appears to be in the same location in both the video (with the cop in red standing over/on it), and in the later NBC released photograph. It does appear that Mr. Scott was moved. Look at the distance from the curb to Mr. Scott's feet in both the video and the picture. He could have been moved during treatment and possible preparation for transport before the EMTs concluded that he was dead, and the body and the surrounding area became a crime scene.

https://theintercept.com/2016/09/23/no-gun-near-keith-scotts-body-in-video-recorded-by-his-wife-seconds-after-killing-2/?comments=1#comments


So if it is a throw down you would have to accept that the cop in red immediately recognized the error of no gun and had a weapon ready to throw down in 9 seconds. You also would have to accept that the chain of custody would allow the cops to plant fingerprints and DNA on the gun after the shooting with a crowd surrounding the scene (or the crime lab is lying). An interesting question would be if fingerprints are found on the shells in the gun.

It makes perfect sense if they're trying to preemptively justify shooting someone who doesn't have a gun, or who they aren't sure has a gun.

'drop the weapon' .... 'don't resist' .... when they did not realize someone was videotaping the event and that the video clearly showed that the person was not resisting or did not have the weapon.


It would appear to an outside observer that police yell this as they brutalize people as a means to defend their actions vs the actual situation at hand

or twist apart their shoulders

which is also something that they do

Don`t do what?

That is pretty fucked up.

I think the cops need to do a much better job of de escalating these things. Carrying a gun is not a shooting offense.

is generally not going to end well for anyone.

I would also note that Scott could not legally possess a firearm under long-standing federal law as he was a convicted felon.

I would never advise anyone to do it. But in and of itself carrying a weapon does not make one guilty.

As a legal matter, the totality of the circumstances must be considered within the context of what the officers reasonably believed at the time of the incident. Did the officers reasonably believe that lethal force was necessary to protect themselves or the public?

In a lethal encounter, police can be wrong about important matters like the existence of a gun, but their reasonable belief of a serious threat could still render a shooting justified.

As a practical matter, if a suspect has firearm, or if experts are still unsure after leisurely review and analysis of multiple videos, the police are readily identifiable, the police order the suspect to drop the weapon, and the suspect fails to comply, no less if the suspect is later found to have a violent felony record, the shooting will almost certainly be determined as justified.

At this point I don't think there is any doubt he had a gun.

This will be ruled as justified IMHO. I still believe it was totally unnecessary and an example of police escalating a situation to a point where it became deadly.

hands down by his sides. He was NOT pointing anything at anyone when he was shot! He did not point anything at anyone at any time during either video.

Also, at the 28-second mark of the body cam video, you can see there is no gun near his body after he is shot.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028185514

And these are the videos they released. I bet the ones they didn't release are even more damning!

That said I don't think there is any doubt at this point that he had a gun.

In the body cam footage you can see the cop in red retrieve the gun. When you put that together with the Video the wife took where you can see him kick it back after standing back up and then put that together with the photos of the gun on the ground and consider all the positioning. I think the evidence is pretty compelling he did in fact have a gun.

Again that does not mean I think they should have shot him. Quite the opposite as I don't see any threatening movement.

You're right. They're not going to yell, "drop the gun!" a dozen times as a premeditated plan to cover their asses so they can then shoot him without cause.

This may wind up being a justified shooting. If they had released their footage last week, they could've saved themselves a lot of demonstrations. Secrecy is never a good plan.

CNNs banner headline has been: "there is no definitive visual evidence that he had a gun in his hand."

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/24/us/charlotte-keith-lamont-scott-shooting-video/index.html

I thought it could possibly have been a gun in his right hand, but I assume they've had a chance to take a much better look at the footage than we are able to.

I don't see how police can justify the escalation of this situation, whether he had a gun or not. How does a guy go from sitting in a car outside his own home - not doing anything wrong except maybe smoking some pot - to being killed by the police in just a couple of minutes? No matter how you look at it, it is a failure on the part of the police.

I haven't looked at the further analysis of the taaes this morning, but can't understand why the situatin was escalated to the point it was.

Remember, an awful lot of our current crop of gadgets are palm-sized and black, like a compact handgun.

So he yells "drop the gun!"

The officers around him take up the call. They haven't seen a gun but they're going to back up the initial shouter.

The man has a device that's not a gun, so he can't do a gun that he doesn't have. He's "non-compliant", so the cops shoot him.

a book, or many other small items.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/man-shot-killed-police-mistake-cell-phone-gun-article-1.2483359

Las Vegas authorities have released the name of the suspect they shot and killed after mistaking his cell phone for a gun.

He was not doing anything to threaten anyone or harm anyone.

The police themselves escalated the whole thing; they caused him to be in the situation he was in. He did nothing wrong.

he did several things wrong. One he was a convicted felon and he was in possession of a firearm. I don't think there is any way they knew this at the time but it is still wrong.

Also he was smoking pot presumably near a school since he was allegedly picking up his son from school. As a pot smoker myself I don't find this wrong but in his state it is still illegal.

I am mostly in agreement with you though. i don't think there was any reason to create this situation.

Last edited Sun Sep 25, 2016, 10:32 AM - Edit history (1)

At this point I don't doubt much of what the police investigation is stating thus far. But one thing is certain, they need some BETTER CAMERAS so all of these questions and conspiracies can be better answered!

Seriously, we live in an era where higher end smartphones with their tiny camera sensors can take crystal clear HD video with silky smooth 60fps frame rates, and we're still dealing out this choppy grainy mess?? They can do better than this, technologically.

that the cops would ignore a warning from his wife that he has a brain injury and just took meds for it and therefore is no harm to them. If it was someone not just impaired by a brain injury but out and out mentally retarded, and the cops shot them, how would we all react? Especially if the person's mom warned the cops.

If the cops are not trained in things they should be, that can effect the life and death of another person, then they are not fit to perform duties. Knowing this guy had a brain injury really effects how you see their next courses of action.