Protests Erupt After Police Kill Black Man In North Carolina

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Hundreds of people took to the streets in North Carolina after police shot and killed a black man while they were looking for someone else.

Officers were serving a warrant for a different man at an apartment complex in Charlotte on Tuesday, but instead killed 43 year old Keith Lamont Scott who was reportedly disabled.

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The incident comes just one day after a white officer killed an unarmed black man in Oklahoma.

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ITV reports:

Police said in a statement that the 43-year-old got out of his car holding a firearm and posed an “imminent deadly threat”.

Department spokesman Keith Trietley said that he got out of the car and back in, and when officers approached he got out of the car again with a gun, and at least one officer fired a weapon.

Protesters stare down officers one holding a sign “it was a book” family claims the man police killed had a book, not a weapon @wsoctv pic.twitter.com/qnMfo63dNy

— Joe Bruno (@JoeBrunoWSOC9) September 21, 2016

Scott was taken to Carolinas Medical Centre and pronounced dead.

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Posts on social media reported that Scott was unarmed and disabled, and family members say he was holding a book and waiting to pick up his son from school.

Joe Bruno, a reporter from local news station WSOC tweeted this footage of Lamont Scott’s sister, saying “he didn’t have no gun, he wasn’t messing with anybody”:

Sister of the man police shot and killed: “he didn’t have no gun, he wasn’t messing with nobody” @wsoctv pic.twitter.com/37k55Lt70H

— Joe Bruno (@JoeBrunoWSOC9) September 21, 2016

Police said that a weapon had been recovered from Mr Lamont Scott, but did not comment on whether he was disabled or not.

The protest began to disperse late on Tuesday night after police fired tear gas on the crowd and an emergency unit was dispatched to remove officers.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department reported that 12 officers had been injured in the demonstration and that protesters had been destroying police vehicles.