Police footage of Keith Lamont Scott's death released Saturday

Kerr Putney, chief of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police

(Image credit: Getty Images)

last updated 25 September 2016

One day after The New York Times published cell phone footage of the moments preceding Keith Lamont Scott's fatal shooting at the hands of police in Charlotte, North Carolina, Chief Kerr Putney of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department announced he would release footage from the dash and body cameras of the officers involved on Saturday. The graphic video is available here via the Charlotte Observer.

Putney said releasing the video would have "no adverse impact on the investigation" into Scott's death, adding that his decision was not influenced by five days of protesters in Charlotte calling for the film to be made public. North Carolina. Gov. Pat McCrory and the mayor of Charlotte both endorsed the decision.

The police chief also said the video has "no definitive, visual evidence" that Scott was armed at the time of his death — a major point of controversy between accounts from police and other eyewitnesses — but maintained other evidence says Scott "absolutely" had a gun when he was killed. Where the gun was located is less clear; an Associated Press report indicates Putney "told reporters on Saturday that officers saw marijuana and a weapon in Keith Lamont Scott's car," as opposed to in his hands.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.

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