The Charlotte Police, as well and the wife of Keith Scott, have both released their own videos of the deadly incident that took place several days ago. The shooting sparked outrage, protests and rioting throughout the small city of Charlotte, leaving one protester dead and a dozen cops injured. Typically, video that surfaces helps to answer some of the questions we are left asking. In this case, it had the opposite effect.
Video and images captured at the scene, depict a calm and cooperative Scott exiting his vehicle and slowly backing up. It is difficult to see if there is anything in his hand, although police claim to have recovered a gun. What we do know is that another life has ended at the hands of police.
It is hard to interpret the information that has come forth: what is valid, and what information is simply disinformation? The controversy began with a distinctly different narrative between eyewitnesses to the shooting and the official story from police. According to police, they were on scene for a wanted person when they, for unknown reasons, confronted Keith Scott who was seated in his car. According to the police, Scott exited his vehicle with a handgun. After being commanded to drop it several times, police opened fire, killing him. The video shows this, minus the gun part. The story, according to witnesses on scene, say this is a cover up. Numerous witnesses stated to the media that Scott was holding a book in his hand when police shot and killed him. According to the police chief, they recovered a handgun – not a book. Unfortunately for everyone, the video does little to clarify the situation and dispel any talk of cover-up.
The cell phone video that was released first, had people asking if the official version of accounts was a lie. Aside from the conflicting stories in regards to what actually happened, the photographs and video seem to show objects being tossed onto the ground by police. Some had speculated that the item on the ground in the photos is the gun, which wasn’t there a moment before. Unfortunately, for the conspiracy theorists, the object in the video is not a gun. Police are some of the most untrained “professionals” in the country and that item is proof. The dark item in the picture – that magically appears out of thin air – is a glove. The presence of the glove is almost as damning as a gun. It shows a blatant disregard for preservation of the crime scene.
After days of pressure by protesters, the chief has released the department’s own video of the shooting. There are two different angles: one from a body cam and the other from a dash cam. The video does not confirm a gun at any time during the encounter. It is hard to tell if Scott had anything in his hand at all, from the angles of the camera. What it does show is a Keith Scott, calm and compliant, seemingly backing up slowly and making no threatening gestures. There is still controversy over who actually fired at Scott, with witnesses claiming the shooter was white. The chief, however, has stated the shooting officer is black, and despite eye witness accounts, this is not the type of information a law enforcement chief would or could fabricate. Forensics on the gun will be corroborated with the ‘whats’ on the videos, so the identity of the shooter should not be in question.
So we have to assume there was a gun recovered at the scene, despite what witnesses claim. A gun was recovered and the question becomes: was it planted? The family said that Scott didn’t own a gun and didn’t usually carry a gun. An officer can clearly be heard yelling “drop the gun” repeatedly. Based on these circumstances alone, there will be no prosecution of anyone. Unless the whole thing is a set up from the start, which is highly unlikely, no one is going to go to jail. The shooter, though, will undoubtedly be forced to resign; not because of his department believing he did something wrong, but his presence will be a distraction from the every day functioning of the department (much like Darren Wilson who resigned under nearly identical circumstances).
There are still many questions that need answering. Many aspects of the video clearly demonstrate poor police work. The rush to shoot and the cowboy-cop mentality that today’s police embody, are again put on display for all the world to see. This wasn’t a case of bad judgment like we saw in Tulsa. This was an intentional decision to end a man’s life because he didn’t meet your time-frame of events. This officer will walk because the vagueness of the law allows for specific police policy – and ultimately training – which all but mandates the shooting of any armed person. Despite any constitutional argument to the contrary, police are currently allowed to kill you on sight if you have a gun and they can do it without warning, despite the varying possibility of circumstances. This is the catch that sets every cop free. It doesn’t matter if that person pointed the gun or not.
The main question that the Keith Scott shooting asks is: why did police have to shoot so fast? Why couldn’t they have waited? There was sufficient police presence to take Scott down from a number of different angles, without the need to kill him. His wife was on scene and could have offered to talk to him if not commanded away by the wannabe army battalion. Scott had a brain injury that could have played a factor in his behavior, but the cops were too busy knowing everything to care.
When it’s all said and done, this is the fourth high profile shooting in the last two months and people want things to change. We have yet to see justice in the cases of Anton Sterling and Philando Castile and it is all but guaranteed there will be no justice here either.
Sources: NY Times.
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