CHARLOTTE, N.C. _ A lawyer for the family of the man killed by Charlotte-Mecklenburg police last month says he still has many questions about the shooting, even after Tuesday's release of all of the police video.
Charles Monnett, the Charlotte lawyer, says he wants to know:
_ Was Keith Lamont Scott's gun still in his ankle holster at the moment when an officer shot him?
_ If Scott was presenting a threat to officers, why did one of the police bullets strike him in the back of his shoulder?
_ Did Scott's own cellphone contain evidence that could shed light on the shooting?
"Is there audio or video of the incident on Keith's cellphone?" Monnett asked.
Police have refused to return the cellphone to the family because they say it is part of the evidence in the case, Monnett said. Scott's mother told a South Carolina television station that he called her shortly before the fatal shooting on Sept. 20.
Police body-camera footage released this week shows in graphic detail the final minutes of Scott's life.
The video shows police officers handcuffing the 43-year-old African-American man, then trying to save his life as he lay bleeding in the parking lot of his University City apartment complex. Officers in the video said they found three bullet wounds on Scott _ on his wrist, abdomen and on the back of his left shoulder.
In an interview on Wednesday, Monnett declined to speculate which of the three bullets struck Scott first. But in the video, the family lawyer noted, Scott appeared to lurch forward before falling backward.
Police say that they saw Scott holding a gun before he was shot _ and that they recovered a loaded gun with his fingerprints and DNA after the shooting. Family members have said Scott was unarmed.
A gun can't be seen in any of the video footage that's been released. But after the shooting, one officer whose voice is captured by the body camera is heard telling another to "come watch this gun."
Extended video footage from a dashboard camera suggests police may have been preserving or guarding evidence after the shooting. The newly released video shows a series of officers standing in front of the police SUV where a gun was believed to have fallen.
At one one point, an officer takes up a post over the spot for nearly three minutes, points to the ground, then moves off. For 44 seconds, the spot is unoccupied, then another officer takes that position for the next 20 minutes until the video ends.
Monnett didn't dispute the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department's assertion that Scott had a gun. But he said it's unclear where the gun was � and whether it presented a threat to officers. He noted that the police video appears to show a holster on Scott's right leg.
"Whether there was a gun in that holster, I can't tell," Monnett said.
CMPD Chief Kerr Putney said he has found nothing to indicate that Officer Brentley Vinson, who shot Scott, acted inappropriately, and that he does not think his officers broke the law that day.
They were, he said, reacting to what appeared to be an imminent threat.
Scott was convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in 2005, after he shot and injured a man in San Antonio. Last year, his wife got a protective order against him, telling court officials he had beaten family members and threatened to kill them with his gun.
But Monnett says it's clear from the police video that the officers who confronted Scott did not know about his past. In the newly released body camera video, which lasts about 16 minutes, officers can be heard repeatedly asking Scott his name as they tended to his wounds.
Asked about Monnett's questions, a CMPD spokesman referred a Charlotte Observer reporter to the State Bureau of Investigation, which has taken over the investigation into the shooting. A spokesperson for the SBI said the agency won't comment on specific facts and circumstances in the case.
"A comprehensive report will be filed with the district attorney, when the investigation is completed," the spokesperson wrote.
Putney said that Scott drew the attention of officers who were trying to serve an arrest warrant on an unrelated suspect at the Village at College Downs apartments because they saw him with marijuana in his vehicle.
Police were going to let it go and continue on their original mission until an officer spotted a weapon in the vehicle, Putney said.
"It was not lawful for him to possess a firearm," Putney said. "There was a crime he committed and the gun exacerbated the situation."
Scott's death triggered several nights of protests in Charlotte. After street violence, dozens of arrests and the death of one man in uptown, Gov. Pat McCrory declared a state of emergency.
