Protests Erupt Over Police Killings of Terence Crutcher and Keith Lamont Scott in Tulsa and Charlotte

Content Warning: Graphic content contained in this video.

We host a roundtable on police killings of black men. Protests escalated in Charlotte, North Carolina, overnight when hundreds took to the street and blocked Interstate 85 to express outrage over the police shooting of 43-year-old African American Keith Lamont Scott on Tuesday. Video footage shows people blocking the highway, where fires were lit. This comes as police in Tulsa, Oklahoma, have released a video showing a white police officer shooting and killing 40-year-old African American Terence Crutcher while his hands were in the air. We are joined by Vincent Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights; Bree Newsome, artist and activist from Charlotte who scaled the 30-foot flagpole on the South Carolina state Capitol and unhooked the Confederate flag last year; and Rashad Robinson, executive director of Color of Change. He has launched a new petition called “Terence Crutcher died for being Black. Indict Officer Betty Shelby.”

TRANSCRIPT

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We begin today’s show looking at police killings of two African-American men — one in Tulsa and one in Charlotte, in North Carolina, which was rocked by protests overnight after hundreds took to the street and blocked Interstate 85 to protest the police shooting of 43-year-old African American Lamont Scott. Video shows protesters blocking the highway, where fires were lit. Police in riot gear responded by throwing tear gas at the crowds. Police say about a dozen officers were hurt during the conflict. Protesters were also hurt.

AMY GOODMAN: Keith Lamont Scott was shot and killed around 4:00 p.m. Tuesday after police arrived to serve an arrest warrant for another person at Scott’s housing complex. The accounts of the shooting diverge sharply. While the police claim they first tased and then shot Scott because he was armed and “posed an imminent deadly threat,” Scott’s family says he was not armed — except with a book. They say he had…

Read more