After authorities in Charlotte, North Carolina refused to release footage showing the police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott, the family of the victim just made public cell phone footage that reveals the moments before and after the incident.
In the footage, obtained exclusively by NBC News, you can hear Scott’s wife, Rakeyia Scott, tell police her husband does not have a weapon. She also tells her husband to comply to officers and get out of the vehicle. Shortly after, Scott is shot down.
From NBC:
Rakeyia Scott can be heard saying “Don’t shoot him, don’t shoot him” as police appear to converge on a white pick-up truck in the parking lot of a condominium complex. “He has no weapon — don’t shoot him!”
Rakeyia Scott can be heard urging her husband to comply with the officers who had instructed her husband to “drop the gun, drop the gun.”
“Keith, don’t let them break the windows! Come on out of the car,” she can be heard yelling, “Keith, don’t do it!”
“Keith, Keith, Keith — don’t you do it!”
After Scott is shot, Rakeyia calmly asks cops if they called the ambulance.
“He better not be f—ing dead, he better not be f—ing dead. He better live, he better live!”
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The video, shot by Rakeyia, does not appear to show events leading up to the confrontation. It also does not appear to show a handgun, which police say was in Scott’s possession. His family maintains he was not armed.
Although three cops at the scene were wearing body cameras, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Kerr Putney has refused to release the video, which he says does not show “absolute, definitive, visual evidence” that Scott was holding or pointing a gun at responding officers. Police were initially on the scene — an apartment complex near the University of North Carolina at Charlotte — to serve an outstanding warrant to someone else. When they arrived, police say they saw Scott holding a gun and exiting his vehicle.
When police approached him, authorities said, Scott reportedly became threatening.
The officer who shot Scott, identified as CMPD Officer Brentley Vinson, has been placed on administrative leave.
An attorney for Scott’s family is demanding the release of body camera and dashcam video.
You can watch the disturbing video below: