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Charlotte Police Release Video and Statement of Shooting; Family of Keith Lamont Scott Make Statement; Questions Remain After Dash Cam Video Released. Aired 7-8p ET
Aired September 24, 2016 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[19:00:00] POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: A lengthy statement from the Charlotte Police Department.
NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That release by the Charlotte- Mecklenburg Police Department also included a narrative of what they say happened. In the videos that we see, the first is from a body camera worn by of one of the police officers. And from our perspective, it is not clear that Mr. Scott has a gun. The dash cam video perhaps provides a little bit of a wider perspective and in it, you see an officer behind a pick truck. You then see Mr. Scott get out of the driver side of his vehicle and slowly begin to walk backwards.
It appears from that dash cam video that he does have something in his hands, but you can't make out clearly that it is a gun. It is just in a matter of seconds while police have their guns trained on Mr. Scott. They're giving him verbal orders to drop his weapon, to drop the gun, drop the gun. But as he is walking backward, it appears that during that time as he's walking backwards, that is when those fatal shots were fired. The videos are very short. One of the videos, the body cam video is just a minute long. The dash cam video is about two minutes long.
You do hear, as I mentioned, those verbal commands by police officers as their weapons are trained on Mr. Scott. But it's not clear from watching the video that Mr. Scott had a gun in his hand, though it does appear that he had something in his right hand. Poppy?
HARLOW: You know, Nick, just reading through the statement, I know you've just seen it as well, but the police here in Charlotte are saying due to the combination of illegal drug and the gun Mr. Scott had, that's why the officers decided to take action. They outfitted themselves. So they left the scene, they put vests on that would clearly mark them as police officer, because remember, these officers were there in plain clothes. There was like at least some of then on another, on a warrant trip for someone completely differently.
When they came back, the officers again witnessed Mr. Scott in possession of the gun and they identified themselves as police officers, repeated those verbal commands to drop the gun, and then another police officer came up in a marked vehicle to help them. That's the officer that used his baton, they say, to breach the front passenger window. And as we heard from the video released from Mr. Scott's wife, you hear her saying you know, "Don't let them break the window, come out of the car, come out of the car."
This police statement from Charlotte goes on to say that Mr. Scott exited the vehicle with the gun. He exited the vehicle with the gun, backed away from the vehicle while continuing, they say, to ignore officers' repeated commands to drop the gun. That is one, and this is the key, Nick, right, because that is when Officer Vinson says that he perceived those actions and movements an imminent physical threat to himself and other officers, Nick.
VALENCIA: You know, he's taking steps backwards. That much is clear during the video when he is shot, you know? But looking at it and the police chief said as much in the press conference a little while ago that it is not pantheon, that there's no one piece of clear evidence that's going to satisfy the narrative of the story of what happened. Police are sticking to what saying. They're saying that they gave verbal commands for him to drop his gun and he did not comply. From -- or from what we saw, what I saw in that video, Mr. Scott is walking backwards. He's never asked to put his hands up. He does not appear to put his hands at anytime and he is shot as he's taking those slow steps backwards, Poppy.
HARLOW: Nick, please stay with me. Thank you for all the reporting. And as we work to get this video to you, the viewers, so you can see for yourself what Nick has just described to us. I want to bring back my panel Cheryl Dorsey is with me. She's a retired sergeant with the Los Angeles Police Department. Cedric Alexander is with us, a CNN law enforcement analyst, also a Director of Public Safety at the Dekalb -- in Dekalb County, Georgia, the Police Department there. CNN Political Commentator and Morehouse College Professor, Mack Lamont Hill is with us and Criminal Defense Attorney and Former Prosecutor, Paul Callan. Also with us, Legal Analyst and Former Federal Prosecutor, Laura Coates.
Cheryl Dorsey, I want to go with you because you are a former sergeant with the LAPD. I think the real critical part of this release from the Charlotte Police Department is they say that Mr. Scott got out of his car with the gun and then he backed away from the vehicle and did not follow the officers' calls for him to drop the gun. And they perceived his actions and movements as an imminent threat to physical safety. What is the bar for feeling, or is there a bar, I should say as an officer, when you're out in a situation like this for feeling an imminent threat to your own safety that would justify use lethal force? What is that bar and is this needed as it is described by the Charlotte Police Department?
CHERYL DORSEY, FORMER LAPD SERGEANT: Well, certainly, that's going to be up to the officer and what his perception was. And if someone weren't raising their hand that was -- had a weapon in it, certainly within, you know, a millisecond, they could fire off of a round. So, you know, that's objective and it's up to that individual officer.
[19:05:09] But, Poppy, as I listen to that, having written reports as a police officer and having approved reports as a police sergeant, what I'm hearing is someone trying to craft a situation that will fit this deadly use of force. If these officers were there undercover in plain clothes, Mr. Scott doesn't know who they are, they're watching him, they have the presence of mind to back out, put on a vest to identify themselves. Why didn't they get a supervisor and tell the supervisor what they had just observed and decide tactically what would be the best way to go back in and to approach him?
Going back in the way that they did, they already know that he has a gun, they've seen it. And so now, they are ordering him out of the car and yelling, "Drop the gun, drop the gun". He may not be using the gun in a threatening manner but they already had seen it in his possession. And so now, they're trying to justify something that I'm not really sure is justified based on this very detailed statement that was just read.
HARLOW: Cedric Alexander, to you, what is your reaction to what Nick described in the video and also what the Charlotte police are saying here about what it was that caused Officer Vinson to believe his life was in imminent danger and therefore he fired the deadly shot?
CEDRIC ALEXANDER, CNN LAW ENFROCEMNT ANALYST: You know, for Officer Vinson to make a decision to fire the shot, you know, he's going to have to be able to articulate what it is and he experienced in that moment to make him pull the trigger. But here is the piece of all of this, Poppy, to me from an analyst perspective is that we have piecemeal information. We have pieces of a police report.
HARLOW: Yeah.
ALEXANDER: We have pieces of video that we've seen, and yet there's more to be seen I guess here tonight. That's going to come in. So for me, all of this is somewhat choppy and somewhat piecemeal. And I think the key is going to be when you put all this evidence together and to Cheryl's point, Ms. Dorsey's point, is we've been around policing for a very long time and we've written a lot of police reports and we reviewed a lot of them.
And -- but I think the important piece is when you start looking at all the police officers' statements, the witness's statements, the physical evidence, and what we have in video is going to line up or it's not going to line up. And I think that is what's going to be determined overtime here very shortly.
HARLOW: You know, as we continue this discussion, just talking to our team in the control room, what I think would be helpful is for us to be able to queue up some of the video from Keith Scott's wife, Rakeyia, who released this cellphone video because now we have what the police department is saying happened, and that video when it's ready, we'll show it to you again. Let's just listen in to this for a moment, OK?
(BEGIN VIDEO-CLIP)
RAKEYIA SCOTT, KEITH SCOTT'S WIFE: Don't shoot him.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gun! Gun! Drop the gun! Drop the gun! Drop the gun!
SCOTT: Don't shoot him. Don't shoot him. He didn't do anything.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Drop the gun! Drop the gun!
SCOTT: He doesn't have a gun. He has a TBI. He's not going to do anything to you guys. He just took his medicine.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Drop the gun!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let me get a fucking baton over here.
SCOTT: Keith, don't let them break the windows. Come on out the car.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Drop the gun.
SCOTT: Keith, don't do it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Drop the gun.
SCOTT: Keith, get out of the car. Keith, Keith, don't you do it. Don't you do it. Keith, Keith, Keith, don't you do it! Fuck! Did you shoot him? Did you shoot him? Did you shoot him? He better not be dead. He better not be fucking dead. I know that much. I know that much, he better not be dead.
(END VIDEO-CLIP)
HARLOW: OK. So there you have part of that video coming out from Keith Scott's wife yesterday. Laura Coates, to you as we watched that video, we know a little bit more now, right? We know that that -- what that second police patrol car is that pulls up. We know that -- from the police now that he had a baton and then he was trying to breakthrough the window of the car because they say that Mr. Scott had a gun and that he refused to then drop the gun when he got out of the car.
Laura, legally speaking from a purely legalistic point of view, is there anything in the law that says what one has to be doing with a gun or not doing with a gun that an officer could perceive an imminent threat to their life and use lethal force. Or is it case by case how does the officer feel at the time?
LAURA COATES, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It really is fact specific, Poppy, and that's one of the frustration I think people have when they're to evaluate whether or not use is justifiable. You see, most people are judged by what the common man would do and the common person. But when it comes to use these types of force, the Supreme Court has been very clear that it is an objective officer standard, whether it's reasonable for another officer in the same situation to do that, not whether you as a civilian who's not an officer would find it reasonable.
[19:10:11] And so you have this very differential standard to police officer. What you're able to is what I think Cheryl was alluding to as well is that you're able to determine what you thought personally would be appropriate and it's not a part0icular -- there's no one, you know, test that you can use to figure out whether the person perceive a threat. It's what another officer in the same situation would feel. You know, as a prosecutor, I'm looking at this case and thinking to myself, look, I know we have a court of public opinion, but ultimately their request, whether there's going to be criminal chargers or not.
And you have to weigh yourself, that differential standard that police officers have and you have testimonies from officers, and they provided theses photographs that are presumably for circumstantial evidence to support their claims. And you're weighing this against the fact that, well, they said they had time to go get vests. And also they had time to try to get a baton. They wanted him get out of the car for a public safety concern. You're weighing these two things, these facts against figuring out whether or not another officer would have felt that they had to use lethal force.
HARLOW: As we await this video that we should have to show our viewers at any moment, Marc Lamont Hill, to you, let's talk about the context of this because this is much bigger than a tragic shooting and a tragic death. This is the protests that we're seeing night after night on the streets of Charlotte are sparked by this, yes, and sparked by an exacerbated, they say, by a lack of transparency. They believe it's coming from this police department and not really seeing the video until now or all the videos, but this also comes amid their concerns and anger about what they perceive as social injustice for many African-Americans in this state.
MARC LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Absolutely. There is a lack of accountability around this issue and around this country. When you have very little oversighted police, the police are basically empowered to police themselves, and they seem do a very poor job of doing that. Absent video tape is nearly impossible to prosecute or even charge an officer for killing an unarmed or armed citizen. It's nearly impossible to get justice in the minds of these protesters and I will agree with them. And for that reason, you see so much frustration.
You know, there are times where someone dies like Walter Scott in Charleston, and we say, I'm sure the officer did the right thing. And then a videotape comes out and we see the guy running away and then planting a gun. Absent that tape, we don't have that conversation. Absent the tape in Tulsa last week, we don't have a charge or an arrest. It's this kind of sense that makes people frustrated.
So when Charlotte takes so long to release the video tape, you see anxieties, you see distrust, and you see a profound sense of despair around the numerous black men and women who died in the hands of law enforcement. And in many minds, unnecessarily, and the last thing I'll say really quickly is when we talk about the reasonable man standard in court or the reasonable officer standard in court, the problem is, it post the question, what would I do under similar circumstances? The problem is because we live in a nation that is definitely afraid of black bodies. Just because another officer would do the same thing 0:03:07 just as much terror when they see a black body unarmed or armed doesn't necessarily make it fair means. It means that we have codified the kind of irrational fear of black people.
HARLOW: Tom Fuentes to you, from your law enforcement background, Former FBI Assistant Director, when we do see this video for the first time, when the public see that what should they be looking at most specifically? What will you be looking for knowing what we know up to this point?
TOM FUENTES, FORMER FBI ASSITANT DIRECTOR: Well, I think at this point you'd want to look at, is there any reason to disbelieve the officers in this case? You know, much has been made about whether there really was a gun, whether there really was, you know, an aggressive move forward or backward on his part. So, yes, look at the tape, see if it, you know, what it is says to you.
But especially if you combine both videos, the one taken by the wife and the police, their videos, you clearly hear the police officers shouting to drop the gun and over and over. And then the wife makes statements that also make you wonder. You hear from the police officers that they saw him rolling a marijuana cigarette. They find a marijuana cigarette. They take a picture of it to show that there was one. But she makes the statement he just took his medicine. Was the medicine for his head injury, the marijuana, or was he taking marijuana on top of the other medication? We won't know that until the toxicology report comes back. And that often takes a week or more to get all of the reports on what was in his system to see if he was on something and whether, you know ...
HARLOW: Hey, Tom, let me jump in here because -- Tom, just stand by for one moment.
Breaking news. We do now have that dash camera video of the arrest and shooting of Mr. Keith Scott. I do want to warn our viewers, before you watch this video, it is very difficult to watch.
[19:15:01] The content is disturbing. First, what we're going to shoe you is the dash camera video, that vantage point. It's two-minute long.
Okay, these scripts need ...
(BEGIN VIDEO-CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Drop the gun! Drop the gun!
SCOTT: He doesn't have a gun. He doesn't have a gun.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Drop the gun! Drop the gun!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Drop the gun. Drop the gun.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Drop the gun.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Drop the gun.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We had shot fired, one suspect down, legacy court.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All officers at 10-4, we have one suspect down. 10-4, we're right in the front.
(END VIDEO-CLIP)
HARLOW: All right that is what we have so far, about two minutes of that dash camera video of the officers pulling back up to the scene. And then you see them the shooting shot fired and Mr. Keith Scott is killed a lot. It's difficult frankly to make out from that video even if you watch it up close. This is the first time I viewed it just as you've seen it and this the first time most of our panel members have seen it.
Let me bring my panel back in. Tom Fuentes, we were speaking before we played that video. What stands out to you from it? I don't have Tom Fuentes. Cheryl Dorsey to you as a former LAPD officer, what stands out to you from that video? Again, that's just one vantage point. That's the dash cam. We're still waiting to be able to show you the body camera footage.
DORSEY: And so, I'm second guessing the officers for sure, so be clear. But as he's stepping backwards, I don't see that that poses any kind of a threat to the officers. I don't see affirmative movement that would justify the use of deadly force. And like I said in the beginning, Poppy, I'm very bothered by the fact that they left the scene, put on a vest and then came back. I think in this instant, they may have exacerbated that situation, escalated that situation because they're yelling, "Drop the gun, drop the gun." They saw him, they know he has it, they saw him sit in a car rolling a joint. So for him not to drop it immediately, they have escalated this thing now to a use of deadly force. And understand, we know as officers, we're creating an audio record. So, witnesses and others will say, well I heard the officer say "Drop the gun. It's picked up on the radio." This is problematic for me.
HILL: And that's a really important point.
HARLOW: I should know -- I just want to make one quick note here guys and jump in that we have gone -- CNN has gone back to the police department to ask them whether or not these tapes have been edited at all, selectively edited either on audio or video. As we soon as we get an answer from them on that, we will let you know. This is just what they released to the public. We don't know what -- if anything has been edited or how much longer it may have been in those two minutes that were released. But continue. What were you saying?
HILL: Yeah. Well, first, that's something that has been raised by many observers had these tapes been edited, has there been anything done to the sound or to the video? My observation while watching the tape again is I saw nothing that was immediately threatening. Now of course again, I'm not a police officer. I've never been in that situation. But the point is, looking at the video, there is no indication to me that he was an immediate threat to the officers, that there was any kind of reaching it, any type of grasping. And yes, the thing that's most compelling is the officers' favor is this yelling of "drop the weapon", but I've seen this happen as an activist on the ground, that's been involved in many of these sorts of incidents, police were often, when they're attacked -- when they're being, people will say, stop resisting, stop resisting, stop resisting.
[19:20:09] So there's a public record of them saying stop resisting while they're beating you. Saying drop the weapon as they shoot is a very common tactic so that there is a public declaration that they asked the person to a drop the weapon. The timing of that declaration and the urgency of the declaration and legitimacy of that declaration are the things we have to question. Did they need to say that? Was the weapon raised? And finally, just tactically, and we saw this in the case of Tamir Rice in Cleveland, is like if this force is such an imminent threat, do the tactics justify the response? Is this the appropriate way to deal with this circumstance? You watch him falling back here as we're watching. It doesn't look like he is an imminent threat. I don't see it.
HARLOW: Cedric Alexander, do you as a law enforcement analyst, what do you see in here that stands out to you? Because I think the key moment, right, is when Mr. Scott is out of the car and when he is backing away. But he does have a gun according to the police from their statement. You cannot see it in the video. What stands out to you here?
ALEXANDER: Well, one statement Marc just made that's very true and that is the fact that we weren't there and maybe we didn't see what they were seeing, being eyes on in that particular moment. And we don't how much of this has been edited. But let set that aside for a moment. And one of the biggest problems here, Poppy, is going to be this, no matter, people are going to look at this piece of footage tonight and they're going to have problems with it. And they're going to have problems with it because of the cloud of distrust that currently exist between the police and community. That in and of itself is going to guide your perceptions about what you see in this video.
And that's why I keep repeating, understanding that we're seeing bits and pieces of this. Even as graphic as this is, what we're going to see, the next piece of video is going to probably be just as graphic but the cloud and the lenses that we're looking at of now is going to be very, very difficult, in my opinion, for the public to look at this from any angle and be comfortable with it. And that's going to be the challenge. But there's opportunities for this to go before a district attorneys office and maybe before whatever other process that may come into play. So there is some judgment on it that is not judgment that is based on what our observations are but based on what procedure and court of law may think about this.
HARLOW: Paul Callan, to you, speaking about the legal ground here when it comes to a justifiable use of lethal force, is there any legal lines or do the court frankly leave it up to the judgment of the police officer when they say that they felt that their life was in imminent danger? Is that the line, how they perceive it at the time?
PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, when the courts judge these cases they use really a double standard. They use first of all, a subjective standard meaning the officer has be able to say that he or she was actually in fear at the time deadly physical force was used, or that the officer perceived a realistic threat to the public. The second thing is the objective standard that Laura was talking about earlier. And that is, that's the standard that's based on what other police officers might have felt under similar circumstances. So in the end, they're going to be judged by how a reasonable police officer would have judged the situation.
And I know from having tried many cases like this case, the one thing that lawyers always tell juries is, it's very easy to Monday morning quarterback and look back in time and say, "You know, this could have been handled differently." But that's not the standard that you judge a situation by. You have to judge the situation by what is going at the time. And what I'm seeing in this case is a man who, by the statements of his wife, was mentally deranged. He suffered from a TBI. He possibly was either undermedicated or had just taken his medication. His arm ...
HARLOW: Which is a traumatic brain injury for ...
CALLAN: Traumatic brain injury, that's right. And he said -- she said he just took his medication. Now she's suggesting to the officers that he is in unstable state. They then find out that he's armed with a weapon with probably a ...
HARLOW: Paul, let me jump in. Paul?
CALLAN: Yes.
HARLOW: Paul standby. Let me jump in. I want to take you now to live press conference there in Charlotte, North Carolina. The family of Mr. Keith Scott will be speaking right now. You'll listen to Justin Bamberg, a former state representative and someone who is representing the family in this case. Let's listen in.
I can't hear anything.
JUSTIN BAMBERG, FAMILY ATTORNEY: All of the puzzle pieces that complete the picture of what happened the day Mr. Scott lost his life and why he lost his life.
[19:25:10] We know that there were also three images that were produced by CMPD, most notably a handgun, a ankle holster, and what appears to be a small piece of a marijuana blunt which is what they're calling it. I think it's important here to remember that this is an ongoing process and there are still a lot of questions that need to be answered. And we are going to continue to look into the facts of this case moving forward. But one of the biggest questions is when you look at this dash cam footage, when you look at the timeframe between Mr. Scott stepping out of his vehicle to the moment he unfortunately passes away on the pavement is do those actions, do those precious seconds, justify the shooting?
That is the most important question that has to be answered. And we are going to continue to look into the facts. But I can tell you, again, what we see when we look at this dash cam video is Mr. Scott steps out of the vehicle. He doesn't appear to be acting aggressive towards any of the law officers on the scene. He doesn't appear to be making gestures or motions as though he's arguing with anybody. He doesn't lunge at the officers. Appears he has his hands by his side. Again, there is no definitive evidence in this video as to whether or not there is an object in his hands, and if there is, what that object is.
That question still remains. But what we do know is that the moment Mr. Scott is shot, it appears as though he is not aggressively moving towards law enforcement, he is actually doing the opposite. He is passively stepping back.
There is another key question that I think needs to be looked into, and of course we are going to look into it. And that is this, given the statement that was released and the CMPD's position that these officers saw some things go on, they left, they suited up, they came back, and they proceeded to move in on Mr. Scott is this talk of body cameras. We need to know whether or not the policies and procedures of this department is for officer who are now, as they say, identifying themselves as police officers with this department, are they required to wear body cameras? Because we know officer responding officer with this department who is in uniform was.
And at the moment, they put this vest on, that it appears may say police or indicate that they are a law enforcement. Do they need to have their cameras on? If they do, and they don't have them on, that is a problem. And quite frankly, with this of body cameras, we have no perspective from the alleged shooter what he saw. These are things that have to be looked at. So with that said, we'll pass on to ...
RAY DOTCH, RAKEYIA'S BROTHER: Good evening. I'm sorry?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you identify yourself?
R. DOTCH: I'm Ray Dotch. I'm Rakeyia Scott's brother.
RACHEL DOTCH, RAKEYIA;S SISTER: I'm Rachel Dotch. I'm Rakeyia's sister.
R. DOTCH: We are certainly delighted of the family that the videos were released. Our goal has, from the beginning, been to get the absolute unfiltered truth. And the only way to get that is for the police to release the videos that were released today.
Unfortunately, we are left with far more questions than we have answers. It does not make sense to us how it was possible that this incident resulted in a loss of life. It just did not make sense and it is not clear in the videos that were released. Additionally, many of you, the media, of which I am a part, have requested information about Mr. Scott, what kind of person he is, was he a good father, was he a good husband, those issues surrounding his character. Of course, he was a wonderful person. Of course we loved him dearly.
[19:30:01] But that shouldn't be the issue. We shouldn't have to humanize him in order for him to be treated fairly. What we know and what you should know about him is that he was an American citizen who deserved better. That is our position and it should be yours.
My name is Ray, last name, Dotch, D as in David, O-T-C-H.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And you are?
BAMBERG: I am Rakeyia Scott's brother, Keith Scott's brother-in-law.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.
CHARLES MONNETT, CHARLOTTE ATTORNEY: Excuse me. My name is Charles Monnett. I'm the local Charlotte person here. You know, I love this city. I love our State. I respect our police department and understand the difficulty of the job that they have to do. But quite frankly, I'm shocked less than two years after the conclusion of the Jonathan Ferrell case that we're standing back before you again to talk about whether the shooting of another black man was justified.
We shouldn't be here. We've got to learn. We've got to change our police approach. One of the things that really disturb me about what I see on the video is the failure of the police to use all of the resources that they had at their disposal to avoid killing Keith. You know, we're a state with a huge number of veterans, and many of those veterans are coming back with traumatic brain injuries. This isn't going to be the last time police face one of our citizens who suffer from a brain injury. His wife is there trying to tell them he's a man with a brain injury. Why didn't they use that resource? Why didn't they get his wife in and get her assistance to deescalate the situation? We hear that that's something that's supposed to being emphasized in police departments all over the country. Deescalate, don't escalate. But that did not happened here. And we have to ask their selves why.
You know, the standards that the Charlotte Police Department has adopted for the use of deadly force are something called aggravated active aggression. Before a fire on can be discharged by an officer and be in compliance with their policy, the subject, if they are trying or about to shoot has to be engaged in aggravated active aggression which they defined as the imminent danger of serious bodily injury or death to an officer or another innocent bystander. Their policy talks about the discharge of a weapon, not the presence of a weapon.
So are there training problems here? From what we see, that policy is not being followed. So, we hope that this is the last time that media has to gather in Charlotte and talk about whether the shooting of one of our citizens is justified. We hope the city and the police will learn from this encounter.
BAMBERG: At this time, we'll entertain a few questions.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have a question for the relative, so they can step forward, please.
BAMBERG: Well, at this time, the family is not going to be taking any questions. So we'll take the questions.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Could you just tell us the state of Rakeyia Scott, the children, and what has been the message they have to the city of Charlotte (inaudible)?
BAMBERG: Well, they're doing as you would probably expect them to be doing. They're still in a time of mourning. Of course, funeral preparations are underway. And again, you know it's hard to flip through the television without seeing talk of what happened to Mr. Scott and individuals like him. But I can tell you that the family is strong. They're sticking together. They're supporting one another. They're message is as it has been from the beginning. You know, it's OK to express your voice. It's OK to let your frustrations with the system and with the justices and injustices of society. But you have to do that in the appropriate way. They still maintain they don't want violence. They do not want innocent individuals being injured or killed.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Does it appear to you that he has a gun in his hand?
BAMBERG: Absolutely not. There is noting in any video that I have seen whether it be Ms. Scott's, whether it be the dash cam or the body cam.
[19:35:00] You can't clearly identify what if anything is in his hand and that has not changed.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you ...
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Which officer shot him? Are you debating that as a family and attorney?
BAMBERG: We are still looking into all of the facts. Of course, with regards to who pulled the trigger? We don't have access to any of the testing that may or may not have yet been done on the firearms. We are looking into all facts that's obvious because as we said from the beginning, we're not here to hurl allegations. We're here to find out what happened and why it happened. And more importantly, we're here to make sure the best we can that this doesn't have to happen again in the future.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have a question about the police. The police are saying that part of the reason why this happened because he had marijuana and a gun. I'm not really -- You can say whether or not he had marijuana and gun, but I'm more interested in the idea that even if he had marijuana and a gun, this ended up fatality. There's people I've been talking who believe that even if that the case, you say there might be a word that this shouldn't have ended fatality. What are you thinking?
MONNETT: How does the combination of marijuana and a gun constitute aggravated active aggression that put the lives of these officers in danger? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Was that his gun?
BAMBERG: This is our first time seeing an actual photograph of not just that gun but the holster and everything else. We are investigating and looking into the facts. And we hope to continue to dig. And we will find out the truth at the end of the day.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... doesn't lead to a criminal charge, what will happen?
BAMBERG: Come again.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If the FBI investigation does not (inaudible), what will happen?
MONNETT: Well, we have both the civil justice system and the criminal justice system. That's the place for this ultimately to be resolved in our justice system, whether it's criminal or civil. And you know, at this point we just don't know enough of the facts to know whether this officer should be charged, whether it's appropriate whether he negligibly discharge his weapon. That's -- we're trying to do an appropriate investigation to keep an open mind and that's what we urge everyone to do.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You say they're still investigating whether (inaudible), however, now you presented DNA evidence in fact was on that gun. How you explain his DNA on that weapon?
BAMBERG: Well, I can't answer that question. Again, this is our very first opportunity to see what else is out there which is what we have been asking for from the beginning. But I think and we have to go back to the most important question here and that last from the moments leading up to him stepping out of the vehicle to him dying on the pavement. And I can tell you that when I look at the dash cam footage, I don't see anything there, in my opinion that would lead to him losing him life.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So the family still believe that he was unarmed?
BAMBERG: Yes. Those who looked at it, i.e. Ms. Scott, as she looks, she doesn't see him having a gun. You know, none of these things changed. And one thing that everyone has to understand, and we've said this before, is every witness to this has different vantage points. And we are attempting to grab here and grab there and piece together a picture, OK? When one piece of information comes out, that doesn't change someone else's position because that's their position based on what they know. And that's when I say, we don't speak on speculation. We're here to find facts. We're not hurling allegations. We want to know, again, what happened and exactly why it happened.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One way or the other there's going to be reaction to this perhaps tonight. What's your message to those who maybe planning another round of protests this weekend? MONNETT: Just what we've said over and over and over again, and we'll continue to say, we appreciate the support of the community. We want the support of the community. The community should express their opinions but they should do it lawfully and peacefully.
(CROSSTALK)
BAMBERG: Thank you all. No more questions for right now because just as -- this is our first time seeing it. There's a lot of other family and for some of them, this is their first time seeing it. So we have to make sure that they're taken care of this. At the end of the day, this is about them. So thank you all so much.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But that is holding a gun that's police ask you to drop it (inaudible).
HARLOW: And there you have it, a press conference from some of the family members there of Keith Scott. Also speaking for the family, their attorney Justin Bamberg, some of the headlines out of it saying, look, there are so many questions after seeing this dash camera video. They said the moment when Mr. Scott was shot and killed, they do not believe that they view him in any way walking aggressively towards officers. You heard the brother of Rakeyia Scott, Keith Scott's wife speaking, and he said he addressed questions that have come to him and the family about the character of Keith Scott.
[19:40:03] And he said, "He was an American citizen who deserve better." Also you heard one of the other attorney, Charles Monnett, talking about the traumatic brain injury that Keith Scott had and saying the police officers that there are many other people that they will encounter with this kind of brain injury and they need to be prepared, he said, on how to deal with it. They said, are there -- he said, are there training problems here?" Some of those questions raise. We're going to have full analysis of this video we've seen right after the break. On the other side, we will show you for the first time the second video from Charlotte Police, that is the body camera footage. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARLOW: Breaking news, we now have the second part of the Charlotte Police shooting video to release to you.
[19:45:00] What I'm going to show you now is about a minute long. It is the perspective from the officer. It is the body camera footage from one of the officers involved in this shooting. It is not, I should say, footage from the officer who fired the shots that killed Keith Scott. That officer, Officer Vinson, was not wearing a body camera at the time.
Before I play this video for you I wan to warn you it is disturbing. We also want to let our viewers know that there is no audio for the first 23 seconds of this video. At the end of the video, you will hear Mr. Scott moaning at the end of the tape. It's very difficult to watch. Here it is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here he comes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Handcuff, handcuff, handcuff, handcuff.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Handcuff. Handcuff. Handcuff.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What is in the car.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's dropping his hand.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dropping his hand.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Back up, I got my gun.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Back up. Back up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Someone get my bag. Will someone get ...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... some equipment?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where's your bag?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's at the back of truck?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you good? Are you good?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm good. We need to hold the world (ph).
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: There you have it, perspective from one the body cameras on one of the police officers on Tuesday afternoon when Keith Scott was shot and killed.
Let's bring in my colleague Ed Lavandera. He's outside police headquarters in Charlotte. I have a few questions for you. First of all, correct me if I'm wrong, but we don't know what officer that body camera video is from, but we do know it's not from Officer Vinson who shot and killed Mr. Scott, correct?
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Correct. We only know the name of Officer Brentley Vinson, who was -- as you mentioned, the officer that fired the deadly shots. We don't know the names of any of the officers. We do know that Officer Vinson was part of the tactical unit and we are told by a city official that as of now, tactical unit officers here with the Charlotte Police Department don't wear body camera. They're usually in plain clothes, and because of that apparently, they do not wear those body camera footages.
But the one thing I think really bears explanation here real quick is why there is no audio at the top of that body camera. As you mentioned, it takes about 23 seconds or so for that audio to kick in. But as soon as we saw that video, we started asking questions about that just to clarify why there was no any audio. We've been told by a spokesperson for the city manager that the reason that the reason you do not hear audio for the first 20 seconds or so of that body camera footage is that the way this cameras work is that once the officer turns on the camera, engages the camera, that it instantly starts recording video but that it takes -- there's about 20 seconds of pre- roll for the audio to kick in. And that is the explanation that we've been told as why it took awhile for the audio to kick in on that body camera footage that this is the way these cameras work.
We asked repeatedly just to make sure that the portions that we have, other than being edited and condensed down to the length that we -- that has been released today. The city official insists and -- that none of what we have seen has been edited or altered in any kind of way, Poppy.
HARLOW: OK. That's a very important point, Ed. So the police department is saying, this is the video in its raw form as we have it, nothing has been altered, nothing has been cut short even, Ed.
LAVANDERA: What has been cut down to the -- I don't know off-hand. I haven't had a chance to time out the two different videos, how much video we have. Those videos have been condensed on the front ends and the back ends clearly. But the portions that we do have contained inside what we are seeing have not been altered in any way. That's we are clearly wanting to ask about to why it took awhile for the audio to kick in on the body camera footage when we first saw it. We thought it might be a little strange and that it would be something that many people would have quick questions about as they started kind of processing what they're seeing.
So we had this -- this is coming from a spokesperson for the city manager here in Charlotte. We have reached out to spokespeople in public information officers with the Charlotte Police Department just to double check that with them that that's how these cameras work. We have not heard back from them. We'll keep trying. But that is the explanation we've been able to kind of quickly gather here for you as people are, you know, starting to see this video for the first time.
HARLOW: Ed, thank you very much for the reporting.
[19:50:00] Let's bring back my panel, Cheryl Dorsey, back with me, Cedric Alexander, Paul Callan, and Laura Coates.
Paul Callan, to you, we were speaking before the break and we -- now we've seen the video, the second video, the body camera video and, you know, the police chief did say that no single piece of evidence that proves all of the complexities of this case is available. There's a lot, Paul Callan, that you cannot see even from this vantage point.
CALLAN: There's an awful lot and it's one of the reasons you have to wait before reaching a definitive conclusion about any these cases. But, you know, the point I want to make is that there's no question that law enforcement has a credibility problem with African-Americans throughout the United States. There are constant complaints about disrespect and being expressed by law enforcement and their treatment of black Americans on a day-to-day basis. But the criminal justice system decides these cases on a case-by-case basis, and in the end, this case is going to come down to one fact, was there a loaded firearm in the hand of Mr. Scott when the police were saying, drop the weapon, drop the weapon? Because if there was, and there have been reports that a loaded firearm has been recovered from the scene and it already has been linked to Mr. Scott, you're left with a situation where there is no grand jury and there's no prosecutor in America who will indict or charge this police officer with a crime. And the reason is that even if the weapon was down and not pointed at the officer, it can be raise to a shooting position in a matter of less than a second. So that shot could be fired, it could have taken down a police officer, but it also could have taken down a civilian who might have been in the area. And for that reason...
HARLOW: Paul Callan ...
CALLAN: ... the police will be able to articulate a very good self- defense theory here.
HARLOW: And, Paul Callan, let me read for our viewers again if you're just joining us part of that statement that did come to your point from the Charlotte Police Department. They say that a lab analysis conducted of the gun crime scene investigators recovered at the scene revealed the presence of Mr. Scott's DNA and his fingerprints on the gun. It was also determined that the gun Mister Scott possessed was loaded at the time of his encounter with officers.
Cedric Alexander, to you, Paul Callan is saying, look, the legal line is clear here, you will not get a grand jury to indict if he had a loaded gun in his hand regardless of whether it was pointed to officers or not. And you say to that?
ALEXANDER: I say that Paul Callan articulated very clearly based on the law of pretty much in all 50 states that is exactly what the issue is going to be. We have a bigger problem here again, is there something maybe we can learn from this? But the problem is, quite frankly, pointedly, that there is a distrust issue in this country between police and community. And no matter what had occurred out there that day, that police department, any police department, is going to come up under this type of scrutiny.
So we have a lot of work yet to do and I think that the best thing we can do in this case is allow for all of this information to come together and during an investigation so that we can clearly see exactly what happens at the end of it. But all we're going to see as we show these videos is piecemeals of what occurred.
If you go back to the first video that we received, the dash cam video, Poppy, as you're watching Mr. Scott step backwards, because that's where we all are pretty much focused, look and see what the other two officers are doing. They, at that point, see themselves away from their concealment and you can see it in their body language which means that they at that point were exposed. So there's a lot of detail in this video and in these pictures that are going to have to be investigated, going to have to be questioned, is going to have to be characterized in a way that paints a true picture of what occurred in its entirety. And that's going to take some time.
HARLOW: Cheryl Dorsey, to you. The question was brought up in the Scott family press conference just now from one of their attorneys about, you know, is more training needed. Is more training needed when you're dealing with someone who, as his wife said, has a traumatic brain injury? When you look at this from the lens -- through the lens of your career with the LAPD, what's your assessment of that, if more training is needed for situations like this?
DORSEY: Well, certainly that's an issue because we hear that both in this case and in the case of Terence Crutcher, he both -- also had some type of impairment, some kind of a disability. But, again, as a patrol sergeant, as a uniformed supervisor, I am concerned about the tactics and the actions of the officers that led up to this encounter.
[19:55:03] Because if you were my officers and you were on a stakeout and you see somebody sitting in a car waving a gun around, smoking a joint, and you make decision to pull off of that stakeout and not contact me and make me aware of what's going on, and then you're leaving the situation, putting on a vest, going back and confronting this person leads to a deadly force shooting, it's a problem because you were there for something else. And now, you've involved and engaged in something completely unrelated, and it's caused the death of someone that probably did not have to happen. They were there for a stakeout. They left their post. I want to know why and they didn't get a supervisor. It makes no sense to me.
HARLOW: Cheryl, thank you so much. My whole panel, thank you. I want you all to standby. Obviously, big breaking news here on CNN. You've now seen for the first time those two videos, the dash cam video and body camera video, from the shooting of Mr. Scott. We have much more in this breaking news ahead in the next hour. Quick break. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARLOW: Top of the hour, 8:00 p.m. Eastern. We are continuing to follow this breaking news on CNN. The videos are out and they have been released to the public, at least portions of these official police videos of the fatal shooting of a man in Charlotte, North Carolina this week. That man Mr. Keith Scott, 43 years old, shot and killed by police on Tuesday.
[20:00:02] One video is from police dash cam mounted on the car, the other video is body camera video.
