Keith Lamont Scott Killing: No Charges Will be Filed Against Officer

The Charlotte officer who killed Keith Lamont Scott will not be charged in the shooting, CNN reports.

Mecklenburg County District Attorney Andrew Murray said Wednesday (Nov. 30) that Officer Brentley Vinson's use of deadly force was lawful and no charges will be filed in the case. Scott, 43, was shot on Sept. 20 during a confrontation with officers outside of his apartment complex. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department officers were searching at the complex for someone else who was wanted on an outstanding warrant, police said in a statement. During the search, officers say they saw a man exit a vehicle with a gun, then get back inside. Police approached, and said the man “posed an imminent deadly threat to the officers who subsequently fired their weapon striking the subject,” according to the police statement.

"I know some are going to be frustrated," the district attorney said of the decision to not file charges, but Vinson "was justified in shooting him."  The district attorney said he met with Scott's family and that they were "extremely gracious."

Protests erupted in Charlotte following the shooting, which came on the heels of the police shooting of unarmed black man, Terence Crutcher in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Following the shooting, protests erupted at the site of the incident, with hundreds of people converging on the scene. More than a dozen officers and members of the press were reportedly injured. Protestors also set fire on the interstate and also allegedly broke into a Walmart, prompting militarized police to block the entrance.

Scott's killing marked the sixth Charlotte-Mecklenburg police killing of a civilian in the past year. According to The Guardian's The Counted, 970 people have been killed by police in the U.S. so far this year.