Charlotte police to release full video of Scott shooting

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said Friday evening that it will release more than two hours of video footage of the scene where an officer fatally shot Keith Lamont Scott, a reversal from the agency’s previous stance.

In a statement, police spokesman Rob Tufano said the department will honor a request from Scott’s family to make public all dashcam and body camera footage that CMPD has obtained at the Sept. 20 shooting.

Authorities will allow the family to view the footage sometime next week, before providing it to the public, Tufano said. The statement did not specify what day or time.

The announcement followed a letter sent at 2:30 p.m. Friday to Police Chief Kerr Putney and City Manager Ron Kimble from a coalition of media organizations organized by The Charlotte Observer. In it, attorney Jon Buchan termed the letter “a final request” for the release of the remaining video.

Buchan said that there is no exemption in North Carolina’s public records laws for body cam and dashcam videos. Other media included The News & Observer of Raleigh, the Associated Press, CNN, WBTV, WSOC, WCNC, ABC News, WFAE-FM and NPR.

Law enforcement experts and activists have asserted that the department’s initial decision to release no video contributed to the violent protests that followed Scott’s death.

On Saturday, CMPD released parts of videos taken during the shooting from a dashboard camera and a body cam worn by a uniformed officer at the scene outside Scott’s apartment at The Village at College Downs complex in University City. The footage lasts about two minutes.

But the police body camera captured another 16 minutes of footage and the dash-cam recorded an additional hour and 50 minutes that police did not make available.

Putney told the Observer earlier this week that he decided to withhold the footage because it was too graphic and too disturbing to release.

“There is a legal standard, but there is a moral standard that is higher,” Putney said. “Showing a person’s demise on video doesn’t sit right morally or ethically.”