Tearful family calls for calm as it’s revealed cop who killed Keith Scott will not be charged
District Attorney provided evidence the 43-year-old was armed when he was shot, proving cop was justified in opening fire
CRIMINAL charges will not be brought against the Charlotte cop whose killing of a black man sparked riots in North Carolina earlier this year, prosecutors said.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg District Attorney (DA) Andrew Murray ruled cop Brentley Vinson was justified in opening fire on Keith Scott as he refused to drop a gun held at the side of his body.
Speaking to the press as part of a 40-minute conference, the DA provided evidence Keith Scott was indeed armed with a gun, and the officer who killed him feared he would shoot.
Speaking after the ruling, Scott’s family said they were “profoundly disappointed”, but are yet to decide whether they will sue.
They continued: “All our family wanted was justice and for these members of law enforcement to understand that what they did was wrong.”
Scott was killed on September 20 this year in the parking lot of a block of flats.
The DA played CCTV footage taken from a shop near the scene shortly before the killing took place to prove Scott was armed.
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The clip revealed the outline of what appeared to be a gun strapped to the 43-year-old’s ankle.
The DA also said Scott’s DNA was found on the Colt .380-calibre semi-automatic handgun found at the scene of his death.
While Scott never raised or pointed his gun at Brentley Vinson, the cop felt he posed an imminent threat as he ignored orders to drop it, and stared at him in what has been described as a “trance-like state”.
But Scott’s wife Rakeyia, who filmed part of the incident on camera, insisted her husband was not armed when he was shot and killed after police approached him for smoking a “blunt” as he sat in a car outside his home.
Acknowledging the verdict would frustrate Charlotte residents, the DA attempted to appease locals: “We meticulously, thoroughly, reviewed all of the evidence in this case.”
He also invited anyone angered by his ruling to read state investigators’ reports, and said he would have prosecuted an officer if “the evidence showed [they] had acted outside the law.”
The 43-year-old’s killing sparked civil unrest in Charlotte in September as protesters rioted over the killing of yet another African American man by cops.
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