Charlotte protesters rally for 4th night over police killing of black man
US protesters have taken to the streets of Charlotte, North Carolina, for a fourth consecutive night, demanding the release of police footage of the fatal shooting of a black man by a police officer.
Demonstrators marched in Charlotte on Friday night, chanting, “the people united will never be defeated,” and “we young, we strong, we marching all night long.”
The protesters were holding banners that read, “Release the tapes,” and “Just Stop The Killing.”
They also briefly shut down Charlotte’s Interstate 277 and gathered at the headquarters of the Charlotte Metropolitan Police Department.
The National Guard was present on the streets after a state of emergency was declared by North Carolina’s governor.
Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts said the curfew that was imposed on Thursday night will go into effect from midnight until 6 am each day until the state of emergency declared by the governor ends.
Protesters have sought the release of police footage of the shooting earlier this week of Keith Lamont Scott by a police officer.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Kerr Putney said Friday that there is footage from at least one police body camera and one dashboard camera.
However, he saidy that releasing the footage of Scott’s death could inflame the situation.
Meanwhile, a video has been released showing the moments before and after the fatal shooting of Scott.
The two-minute-and-12 second video filming the scene of the incident was made by Scott’s wife on her cell phone camera, however, the footage fails to include a view of the shooting itself.
The shooting death of Scott happened at a time when anti-police sentiment is already high across the US due to a surge of unjustified killings of unarmed African Americans over the past few months.
Police killed over 1,150 people in 2015, with the largest police departments disproportionately killing at least 321 African Americans, according to data compiled by an activist group that runs the Mapping Police Violence project.
According to a recent survey, racial tensions in the US are at the highest level since the 1992 Los Angeles riots that were started after a jury acquitted four white police officers of the use of excessive force in the videotaped arrest and beating of African American Rodney King.
