The violent riots and looting in Charlotte, North Carolina, are — according to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) crowd — actions of “protest” over the officer-involved shooting death of Keith Lamont Scott (shown at right and below). The BLM crowd and Scott’s family — including, and especially, his wife — have said Scott was unarmed.
Police said he was armed and posed an imminent danger.
Who’s correct?
The evidence makes it clear that Scott was not only armed but dangerous — based on statements by Scott’s wife prior to the Charlotte shooting as well as the fact that the handgun recovered at the scene was ready to fire (more on both points below).
Yet despite the presence of the handgun, the family and the BLM “protesters” have denied, and continue to deny, that Scott had a gun. Of course, as The New American reported last week, it is an established fact that Scott has used guns and other weapons in previous violent crimes. In fact, Scott served several years in a Texas prison for firing two shots at police officers who were attempting to arrest him for shooting another man. In that incident, neither officer was hit, and Scott was apprehended without further trouble. Scott confessed to shooting and seriously injuring one Anthony Trinidad.
As we said in the article linked above:
Scott had a long and violent criminal record that included felony assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, misdemeanor assault with a deadly weapon, and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in an episode where — while evading arrest — Scott fired two shots at police officers before being apprehended by those officers.
But — even while reporting on Scott’s violent past and the recovery of the gun, mainstream media have largely ignored some key facts in this case. For instance, one of those charges against Scott was made by his wife, Rakeyia, less than a year ago. While making those charges on October 3, 2015, she also began the process of filing a restraining order and said Scott was “armed” and that officers needed to consider him a “danger.” That order was dated October 5, 2015. On the form she was asked the reason for officers to consider him dangerous. She wrote “he carries a 9mm” and described the handgun as “black.”
The gun recovered at the scene of Scott’s shooting (shown above and below) was a black handgun which appears to be a black subcompact 9mm. Police have said that the gun recovered at the scene was stolen in a burglary and later purchased by Scott.
On that same complaint form, Rakeyia wrote about Scott:
He hit my 8 year old in the head a total of three times with is [sic] fist. He kicked me and threaten [sic] to kill us last night with his gun. He said he is a “killer” and we should know that.
Rakeyia Scott dropped the charges and released the restraining order 11 days later and seems to have forgotten all about it, because in a video she released of the shooting, she can be heard to repeatedly tell officers that Scott does not have a weapon. She has continued to say that was the case. The officers, however are heard telling Scott at least 10 times to “drop the gun.” Rakeyia is heard at least four times warning Scott “Don’t you do it” before he was shot.
Even if Rakeyia’s memories of the most recent restraining order and assault charges she filed against her husband are a little foggy, it seems she would remember the time she filed charges against him in 2004 for stabbing her. Court documents reveal that she said Scott “assaulted me several times by stabbing me in the back, almost puncturing my lungs, he sliced me [sic] ear and bruised my body.”
All of this indicates that this was not Scott’s first rodeo. He was a dangerous man with a past of violent assaults involving weapons. And — though the mainstream media seem to have completely overlooked this fact — the picture of the gun above shows something interesting. The gun is cocked (the hammer can be seen in the fully cocked position, and the safety (located just above the grip and toward the rear of the gun) is off. This gun is in the firing position. All that was left was for Scott to pull the trigger, as he had done in the past. An ankle holster was recovered at the scene, indicating that Scott had certainly drawn the weapon, since the holster was unsnapped and the gun — ready to fire — was found lying beside him where he fell after being shot.
So, even as the BLM crowd and mainstream media have made much of the fact that none of the available videos shows Scott pointing a weapon (in fact, because of the angles of the videos, his hands cannot be seen), it is clear from just what is known so far that Scott was armed and dangerous and — judging from his past and the fact that the stolen gun he was carrying was cocked and the safety was off — was prepared to shoot police officers.
Of course, none of that will matter to the radicalized BLM “protesters” who have exploited this as a rationale to loot, burn, and terrorize the city of Charlotte.
