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Keith Scott’s Widow Speaks Out: Race Absolutely Played A Role

On the Oct. 13 edition of “CBS This Morning,” the wife of 43-year-old slain Charlotte, North Carolina man Keith Scott speaks about how her life has changed since the September police-involved shooting.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police entered into an University City apartment complex Sept. 20 searching for a man with outstanding warrants. According to a previous Atlanta Black Star report, officers came upon Scott while he was in his vehicle waiting for his child to come home from school. Initial reports state Scott was armed and posed an imminent threat to officers. However, family members and some witnesses claim Scott was unarmed and harmless.

In the interview, Rakeyia Scott says that police were not in danger and her husband should be alive today. She tells Gayle King that he suffered a traumatic brain injury months prior and on the day of the shooting “he’d just taken his medicine.”

“He had no gun. He was not a threat. [Keith] was just not a threat, period. He didn’t have a gun, he wasn’t a threat. What is your purpose? What was your reasoning? Why — you saw him backing up, why didn’t you just say, give him a command then?”

She adds that she saw the shooting and that no one can tell her what happened.

“I saw this incident unfold before my face. What people don’t seem to understand, they’re trying to bring in our past, but prior to — I mean, after November the 2nd, after this accident, after his motorcycle accident and when he returned home in January, he was a totally different person.”

Scott believes 26-year-old Black officer Brentley Vinson did not kill her husband. In addition, she tells King that he was not positioned to fire the shot.

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