Hundreds marched through the centre of Charlotte on a fifth night of demonstrations that continued into the early hours yesterday and included white and black families protesting police violence.
One sign read “Stop police brutality” and another showed a picture of a bloody handprint with the phrase #AMINEXT, a social media tag about the fear of becoming a victim of police.
For the first time in three nights, police enforced a curfew, saying they would arrest violators.
A crowd gathered outside police headquarters dispersed without any violence shortly after midnight.
The streets were quiet yesterday morning, but city officials were preparing for extra security at a National Football League game between the Carolina Panthers and the Minnesota Vikings.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg police chief Kerr Putney said his department expects to “expend significant public safety resources” during the game at Bank of America Stadium, which can host more than 70,000 people.
Police released two videos on Saturday showing the fatal shooting on Tuesday of Keith Scott, 43.
Putney acknowledged that the videos themselves were “insufficient” to prove Scott held a gun but said other evidence completed the picture.
“There is no definitive visual evidence that he had a gun in his hand,” Putney said. “But what we do see is compelling evidence that, when you put all the pieces together, supports that.”
Police said officers trying to serve an arrest warrant for a different person caught site of Scott with marijuana and a gun, sitting in a car in a parking lot.
“They look in the car and they see the marijuana, they don’t act.
They see the gun and they think they need to,” Putney said.
Both Scott’s family and protesters have disputed the police statements that Scott was carrying a gun.
Police released photos of a marijuana cigarette, an ankle holster they said Scott was wearing, and a handgun, which they said was loaded and had Scott’s fingerprints and DNA.
But Scott’s family, which released its own video of the encounter on Friday, said the police footage showed the father of seven was not acting aggressively and that the police shooting made no sense, with no attempt to de-escalate the situation.
The family video, shot by Scott’s wife, was also inconclusive on the question of a gun.
In one of the police videos, a dashboard-mounted camera from a squad car showed Scott exiting his vehicle and then backing away from it.
Police shout to him to drop a gun, but it is not clear that Scott is holding anything.
Four shots then ring out and Scott drops to the ground.
A second video, taken with an officer’s body camera, fails to capture the shooting.
It briefly shows Scott standing outside his vehicle before he is shot, but it is not clear whether he has something in his hand.
The officer then moves and Scott is out of view until he is seen lying on the ground.
At least five people who appear to be police officers are seen in the bodycam video.
Both videos show Scott moving at a measured pace with his hands at his sides.
Another lawyer for the Scott family, Charles Monnett, said, the family did not know enough of the facts to know whether the officer who killed Scott should face charges.
The two-minute video recorded by Scott’s wife on a cell phone showed the scene but not the shooting itself.
In the video, Mrs Scott can be heard telling officers that her husband has TBI, a traumatic brain injury.
“Don’t shoot him! He has no weapon” she cries as police yell at Scott, “Drop the gun!” Then shots sound.
