As protests in Charlotte continued peacefully for a third night on Thursday, the call for the city government and police to release the footage of Keith Lamont Scott being shot has reached fever pitch.
Despite a midnight curfew, hundreds took the streets again, this time marching to the police station where they rallied and demanded the release of the police tapes.
On Thursday, Charlotte Police Chief Kerr Putney said officials had no plans to release existing video footage of the shooting, despite conflicting claims about whether Scott was armed and posed any threat to the officers. His family has said that he did not possess a gun.
One of the family’s attorneys, Justin Bamberg, who viewed the footage along with the family, told Reuters Friday that, “There’s nothing in that video that shows him acting aggressively, threatening or maybe dangerous,” adding that it is “impossible to discern” what, if anything, he is holding in his hand.
The Scott family said they have “more questions than answers” after viewing the tapes and joined others demanding their public release.
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Both the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the NAACP have asked for the footage to be made public.
Rev. Dr. William Barber, president of the North Carolina NAACP and leader of the Moral Mondays movement, told Democracy Now! on Friday that Gov. Pat McCrory “wants to suppress the public’s video,” adding, “The public owns this video.”
Corine Mack, president of the NAACP Charlotte-Mecklenburg branch, said that it is particularly important in this climate of heightened racial tensions for police and other city officials to remain transparent.
“I think it’s important, because of the climate we’re in, the distrust of the police department and law enforcement, that that video or those videos be shown to the entire citizenry of Charlotte-Mecklenburg,” Mack said Thursday.
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