N.C. Police Fatally Shoot Disabled Black Man, Family Says He Wasn't Armed

Keith Lamont Scott on the right

This past Tuesday police in Charlotte, North Carolina, fatally shot Keith Lamont Scott, a black man who witnesses said was unarmed and disabled, as they were searching for someone else.

According to a report from local affiliate Fox-46, police were searching for a suspect with an outstanding warrant at an apartment complex when they saw Scott sitting in his vehicle. Official police reports state that "The subject got back out of the vehicle armed with a firearm and posed an imminent deadly threat to the officers who subsequently fired their weapon striking the subject."

Police Chief Kerr Putneylater told reporters at the scene that Scott was not the person for looking for to arrest, saying "I don't believe [the man shot] was the one with the warrants, but we don't know if there was a connection."

Officer Brentley Vinson, who shot Scott, has been placed on administrative leave. Vinson has been with the department for two years.

Still, the incident has incited outrage amongst family members of Scott that claim that all the 43-year-old had was a book when he was shot.

WBTV reporter Sarah-Blake Morgan posted a couple of tweets that included a woman that identified herself as Scott's sister, and another one with a man claiming to be his brother. Another woman claiming to be Scott's daughter had shot a Facebook Live video after the shooting, but it has since been deleted.

This shooting, as well as the one that occurred with Terence Crutcher in Tulsa, Oklahoma, sparked protests and riots in Charlotte. WBTV offered coverage throughout the evening's riots on their Twitter, where protestors threw bottles and broke into a Walmart, before police officers and SWAT teams were used to disperse them.

In a report from the Los Angeles Times 12 officers were injured following the protests in Charlotte.

Local and federal investigations into that shooting are continuing.