Charlotte Police Released Footage Of Keith Scott Shooting Over The Weekend

Keith Lamont Scott was the 43-year-old black man killed by Charlotte police last week. His death sparked MASSIVE protests and eventually riots, looting, and CNN reporters getting knocked right over in Charlotte. Police claimed Scott had a gun and that they recovered a gun at the scene. His family claimed he was reading a book.

This footage has been controversial. Charlotte police originally decided not to release it, saying that it did not conclusively show Scott waving a gun. Amid pressure, they showed this footage to the family at the end of last week and after cell phone footage went public, they released this Saturday.

Here’s the cell phone footage.

My thoughts on the incident are simple: If police surround you, point guns at you, and yell at you to put your gun down, you put your fucking gun down and enter the most surrendery look you can IMMEDIATELY. You don’t hold out. You don’t keep your gun (or whatever you’re holding, whether it’s a gun or not). You don’t get out of your car and start moving around.

Even if you feel you’re being unjustly approached or violated or frisked by cops, you’re not in a position to act upon those feelings. You’ve got armed police officers — with the belief that you’re holding a gun — surrounding and yelling at you. Drop your shit, put your hands up, and get down. Get as down as possible and deal with whatever the hell else you care about later. These things are just so damn avoidable.