Warning: This video includes graphic violence and language some viewers may find disturbing.
CHARLOTTE — The family of Keith Lamont Scott has released what it says is cell phone video, recorded by his wife, that shows the moments leading up to his fatal shooting by police Tuesday.
“Don’t shoot him. He has no weapon,” the woman recording can be heard saying. “He doesn’t have a gun. He has a TBI. He’s not going to do anything to you guys. He just took his medicine.”
She goes on to say: “Keith, don’t let them break the windows; come on out the car. Keith! Don’t do it. Keith, get out the car. Keith! Keith, don’t you do it. Don’t you do it. Keith! Keith! Keith!”
Gunshots are heard as she then says, “Don’t you do it.” She then yells: “Did you shoot him? Did you shoot him? He better not be (expletive dead).”
Authorities said a black police officer fatally shot Scott, a black man and a father of seven, in an apartment complex parking lot as officers looked for another man named in a warrant they were trying to serve.
Police said Scott had a gun as he exited his vehicle, and that Officer Brentley Vinson shot him after Scott did not comply with officers’ commands to drop the weapon.
Scott’s family has said he was reading a book and waiting for his son to come home from school when the shooting happened. But police said Scott was armed and no book was found at the scene.
Also in contention are two police videos — from a dashboard camera and an officer’s body camera — that show Scott’s death. Police allowed Scott’s family to view the videos Wednesday but have so far declined to release the footage to the public.
The family says the videos do not show what was in Scott’s hands when he was shot.