This city's leaders, faced with mounting demands for transparency after a fatal police shooting of a black man led to rioting, resisted calls on Friday for the immediate release of video of the killing and argued that a rushed disclosure could compromise a criminal inquiry.
The status of the police video of the shooting of Keith Lamont Scott, 43, and the shooting's circumstances have been debated here for days, and the discussion deepened on Friday, especially after lawyers for Scott's wife, Rakeyia, released a cellphone video that she took of the episode on Tuesday afternoon.
During a news conference shortly before Scott's video became public, city officials alternated between declaring their commitment to openness and insisting that no official footage should be released before the conclusion of the inquiry by the State Bureau of Investigation.
The Charlotte police chief, Kerr Putney, warned that hastily distributed footage might endanger the city's wary and fragile peace.
"If I were to put it out indiscriminately, and it doesn't give you good context, it can inflame the situation and make it even worse," he said. "It will exacerbate the backlash. It will increase the distrust, so that is where discernment, judgment and reasonableness have to come in."
The chief, who is black, added: "It's not that I want to hide anything. It's I want to be more thoughtful and deliberate in delivering the whole story."
Mayor Jennifer Roberts said the video "should be released," and in a statement after Scott's footage began circulating online, she urged the state investigative team "to use every resource at its disposal to get this done and release the information to the public as quickly as possible."
The demands of protesters, who have sometimes chanted for the release of the footage, gained traction Friday, even after the city made its public defense. When demonstrators took to Charlotte's streets on Friday for the fourth consecutive night of protests, they reiterated their plea. Protesters also marched in Atlanta.
Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee for president, said on Twitter that the city should release its footage without delay. Clinton initially planned to visit Charlotte on Sunday, but she postponed her trip after Roberts publicly asked her and Donald J Trump, the Republican nominee, to avoid visiting the city for now.
A spokeswoman for Clinton, Jennifer Palmieri, said the trip would be rescheduled for October 2, "provided circumstances allow."
© 2016 The New York Times News Service
