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The Student Newspaper of DePaul University

The DePaulia

The Student Newspaper of DePaul University

The DePaulia

The Student Newspaper of DePaul University

The DePaulia

Fatal police shootings in North Carolina and Oklahoma draw protests

Police officers gave a black man multiple warnings to drop a handgun before one of the officers opened fire and killed him, Charlotte, North Carolina’s police chief said Wednesday, hours after protesters and police clashed in unrest that saw tractor-trailers looted and set on fire.

More than a dozen officers were injured, including one who was hit in the face with a rock. Authorities had to use tear gas to disperse the protests in North Carolina’s largest city, which joins Milwaukee, Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri, on the list of U.S. cities that erupted in violence over the death of black men at the hands of police.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Kerr Putney said during a news conference that 43-year-old Keith Lamont Scott was shot because he was armed and posed a threat. But a woman who said she was Scott’s daughter posted a video on Facebook soon after the shooting, saying that

her father, who had an unspecified disability, was holding a book, not a gun.

The protest in Charlotte came hours after hundreds of people rallied outside Tulsa police headquarters, calling for the firing of police officer Betty Shelby, who shot 40-year-old Terence Crutcher on Friday during a confrontation in the middle of a road that was captured on police dashcam and helicopter video.

Shelby’s attorney has said Crutcher was not following the officers’ commands and that Shelby was concerned because he kept reaching for his pocket as if he were carrying a weapon. An attorney representing Crutcher’s family says Crutcher committed no crime and gave officers no reason to shoot him.

“These tragic incidents have once again left Americans with feelings of sorrow, anger and uncertainty,” U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said at the International Bar Association Conference in Washington. “They have once again highlighted — in the most vivid and painful terms — the real divisions that still persist in this nation between law enforcement and communities of color.”

Protesters fill the food court chanting "Black Lives Matter" in the Oklahoma Memorial Union at the University of Oklahoma on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2016 in Norman, Okla. Prosecutors in Tulsa, Oklahoma, charged a white police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black man on a city street with first-degree manslaughter Thursday. (Steve Sisney/The Oklahoman via AP)
Protesters fill the food court chanting “Black Lives Matter” in the Oklahoma Memorial Union at the University of Oklahoma on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2016 in Norman, Okla. Prosecutors in Tulsa, Oklahoma, charged a white police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black man on a city street with first-degree manslaughter Thursday. (Steve Sisney/The Oklahoman via AP)
A police officer in riot gear stands with other officers monitoring protesters as they near Trade and Tryon Streets in Charlotte, N.C., on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2016, as demonstrations continue following the shooting death of Keith Scott by police earlier in the week. (Jeff Siner/Charlotte Observer/TNS)
A police officer in riot gear stands with other officers monitoring protesters as they near Trade and Tryon Streets in Charlotte, N.C., on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2016, as demonstrations continue following the shooting death of Keith Scott by police earlier in the week. (Jeff Siner/Charlotte Observer/TNS)
A horde of local and national media attended a news conference after a second night of violent protests, at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department headquarters on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2016, in Charlotte, N.C. (John D. Simmons/Charlotte Observer/TNS)
A horde of local and national media attended a news conference after a second night of violent protests, at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department headquarters on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2016, in Charlotte, N.C. (John D. Simmons/Charlotte Observer/TNS)
Protesters cross Commerce Street during the Next Generation Action Network protest in downtown Dallas, Thursday, Sept. 22, 2016. Dominique Alexander the leader of the Dallas group behind a July march at which five police officers were killed by a sniper has led a downtown Dallas protest rally the day he left prison. He led a rally Thursday night to protest the fatal police shooting of black men in Tulsa, Okla., and Charlotte, N.C. (Tom Fox/The Dallas Morning News via AP)
Protesters cross Commerce Street during the Next Generation Action Network protest in downtown Dallas, Thursday, Sept. 22, 2016. Dominique Alexander the leader of the Dallas group behind a July march at which five police officers were killed by a sniper has led a downtown Dallas protest rally the day he left prison. He led a rally Thursday night to protest the fatal police shooting of black men in Tulsa, Okla., and Charlotte, N.C. (Tom Fox/The Dallas Morning News via AP)
Protesters celebrate their arrival at Trade and College Streets in Charlotte, N.C., on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2016, as demonstrations continue following the shooting death of Keith Scott by police earlier in the week. (Jeff Siner/Charlotte Observer/TNS)
Protesters celebrate their arrival at Trade and College Streets in Charlotte, N.C., on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2016, as demonstrations continue following the shooting death of Keith Scott by police earlier in the week. (Jeff Siner/Charlotte Observer/TNS)
Eleven-year-old Ethan Julian of Greensboro, N.C., at Romare Bearden Park in Charlotte, N.C., on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2016. (Jeff Siner/Charlotte Observer/TNS)
Eleven-year-old Ethan Julian of Greensboro, N.C., at Romare Bearden Park in Charlotte, N.C., on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2016. (Jeff Siner/Charlotte Observer/TNS)

 

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