Violent protests erupted overnight in Charlotte, North Carolina, after a police officer fatally shot a black man while trying to serve a warrant for a different man at an apartment complex. Police said the man killed, Keith Lamont Scott, had a gun. But his family members said he was carrying a book.
Several hundred people gathered outside the complex Tuesday night, chanting “no justice, no peace!” and carrying signs reading “Black Lives Matter.”
The officer who killed Scott, Brentley Vinson, is also black, the mayor’s office said. The Charlotte case is the latest shooting involving an officer, and racial tensions are high nationwide following a spate of others.
Last week’s fatal shooting of Terence Crutcher, an unarmed black man in Tulsa, Oklahoma, sparked protests after video of the killing appeared Monday. Protesters have been demanding justice and an end to police brutality for months.
In Charlotte, police went to serve a warrant Tuesday and shot and killed a man in the parking lot of The Village at College Downs apartment complex in the University City neighborhood. Scott was not the person authorities were looking for. Scott died at Carolinas Medical Center. A gun he was holding was found at the scene, police said.
Family told CNN that Scott was a father of seven and was sitting in the car reading a book when officers arrived on the scene.
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