After rioting raged for the second night in Charlotte over the police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott, the city's police chief told reporters Thursday he has no intention of releasing dashcam video of the shooting "to the masses."
Asked whether there was a time at which the public could expect to see it, Chief Kerr Putney said there should be no such expectation.
"Transparency's in the eye of the beholder," he said. "If you think we should display a victim's worst day for public consumption, that is not the transparency I'm speaking of."
Scott's family has asked to see police-recorded video, and Putney said he hopes to accommodate that request. He warned, however, that video will not provide "definitive visual evidence" that Scott pointed a gun at police officers. But other evidence and witness accounts support the police narrative that officers opened fire only after Scott refused to drop his weapon, he said.
Justin Bamberg, an attorney for the family of Scott, who was fatally shot by Charlotte police officer Brentley Vinson, told reporters outside the county courthouse that the family will view video of the incident later Thursday, CNN reports.
At the request of Scott's family, Mecklenburg County District Attorney R. Andrew Murray has asked the State Bureau of Investigation to investigate Scott's death, according to his office. State law requires the prosecutor to reach out to the bureau if the family requests it.
