Scott shooting prompts criticism of Charlotte police tactics

The fatal police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott has raised familiar questions about tensions between Charlotte-Mecklenburg police and African-Americans.

But the use of deadly force against a man described as having diminished mental capacity has also drawn concern from those who advocate for the disabled.

Too much remains unknown to say whether the Scott shooting was justified, some law enforcement experts and advocates for disabled people said. But the officers’ actions prior to the shooting raised the chances the encounter would become violent, they said.

Scott, 43, died after being shot by Officer Brentley Vinson outside the University City apartment complex where he lived. Police say they approached Scott because he had marijuana and a gun.

 

A cellphone video released by the victim’s family shows the shots were fired after Scott’s wife told officers that he suffered from a traumatic brain injury. Few specifics are known about Scott’s condition, but people with brain injuries often behave irrationally or confused in stressful situations.

“Their failure to de-escalate has turned what should have been a minor arrest into an international incident,” said Charles Monnett, a Charlotte attorney representing the family. “When they found out he had a traumatic brain injury, they should have used proper techniques.”

Some law enforcement experts and activists echoed his assessment.

They question why officers did not utilize widely practiced techniques to ratchet down confrontations and avoid the use of force.

Hundreds of police departments across the nation, including CMPD, train officers who face potentially dangerous encounters with mentally disabled people to, if possible, keep a safe distance, speak slowly and calmly and buy time to gain the person’s cooperation. A report from a prominent law enforcement group recommends police avoid over-reliance on weapons, including Tasers.

Videos of the confrontation between Scott and CMPD show officers banging on the windows of a vehicle where he is inside. Police also appear to shout for him to drop a gun.

Family members have said that Scott was unarmed, but from the video released so far, it’s not clear whether he had a gun at the time. Police said they recovered a handgun at the scene.

CMPD did not respond to questions from the Observer. Chief Kerr Putney has said he believes the shooting was justified.

During an interview this week on the “Politics of Faith” radio show and podcast, Putney did not say whether he believed officers should have deployed de-escalation tactics.

He acknowledged, however, that his department has “got a lot more work to do” to train officers on dealing with people who have mental disabilities.

Eugene O’Donnell, a former police officer and a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, said suspects in possession of guns pose a serious threat to police whether they have a mental disability or not.

There are differences between how training suggests officers handle encounters and what’s required in a life-and-death situation, O’Donnell said.

“If you just followed the book, you have a cop paralyzed every week,” he said. “There’s a gap between the book and reality.”

Better education needed

Police sometimes find themselves thrust into dual roles as law enforcers and social workers. Families often call police when loved ones with mental health issues behave erratically.

One result is that as many as half the people killed by police in the United States have a disability, according to Ruderman Family Foundation, which advocates for the disabled.

Officers often have little or no training in dealing with the mentally disabled, said Jay Ruderman, president of the foundation. At the same time, he said, people with disabilities sometimes behave oddly during moments of duress or make movements that can be interpreted as threatening to officers.

The Scott case calls for more law enforcement training and a national dialogue about how police interact with the disabled, Ruderman said. He contrasted the scant attention Scott’s disability has received compared with the focus on race.

“If we had better education, there would be less death,” Ruderman said.

About a quarter of CMPD’s 1,900 officers have gone through a 40-hour crisis intervention training, where they are taught how to identify mental illness and de-escalate encounters, Putney said in the podcast interview.

Putney said the department has introduced, a shorter eight-hour training course, so that more officers will have at least basic skills.

Vinson, 26, who shot Scott, joined the department’s police academy in July 2014. He had faced no disciplinary actions before the shooting, according to personnel records released by CMPD.

CMPD has not released the names or other identifying information about the other officers at the scene of the shooting.

Wrong approach?

Scott suffered his brain injury in a motorcycle accident in November in Charleston, S.C. It left him with a stutter and memory problems.

Monnett, the family’s attorney, said Scott was likely confused during his encounter with police.

At least two officers were shouting commands at him, Monnett said. A video shows Scott’s wife also was shouting apparently to convince him to take certain actions.

Monnett said CMPD should have had one officer speak with Scott in a calming voice. Officers also should have given him step-by-step directions, he said. That could include commands to put the gun on the dashboard, slowly come out of the car and to raise his hands.

“They gave him commands that he could not comply with,” Monnett said.

Law enforcement experts and activists were also critical of how officers approached the encounter with Scott. Based on videos, they said, it appears CMPD did not even attempt de-escalation tactics.

“It seems like everything they did escalated the situation,” said Mark Dorosin, managing attorney for the UNC Center for Civil Rights. “If you know he has a gun, why are you banging on the windows? You are exacerbating and intensifying the situation. It is part of the reason the community is so outraged.”

This story was originally published October 1, 2016 at 12:35 AM with the headline "Scott shooting prompts criticism of Charlotte police tactics."