LATEST: 214 black people killed by US police in 2016 A demonstrator protesting the shooting death of Alton Sterling is detained by law enforcement near the headquarters of the Baton Rouge Police Department in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. - REUTERS/Jonathan

CHARLOTTE, NC. – Keith Scott (43), the father of seven from Charlotte, North Carolina who was murdered in cold blood on Tuesday, becomes the 214th black person to be killed by US police this year out of an overall total of 821, according to Mapping Police Violence, another group created out of the protest movement.

There is no national-level government data on police shootings.

Scott was shot dead by a black police officer in the parking lot of an apartment complex on Tuesday afternoon.

His killing is the latest to stir violent protest in the United States over the police use of force against black men. It has stirred broad debate on race and justice in the United States and given rise to the Black Lives Matter movement.

Meanwhile, a protester who was shot during Wednesday’s violent protests died on Thursday. Nine people were injured and 44 were arrested in riots on Wednesday and Thursday morning.

Scott’s family viewed videos of the episode on Thursday and asked for them to be made public, stepping up the pressure on authorities.

In an interview with Reuters early yesterday, Justin Bamberg, one of the lawyers who is representing Scott’s family, said the video shows that the 43-year-old did not make any aggressive moves towards police.

“There’s nothing in that video that shows him acting aggressively, threatening or maybe dangerous,” Bamberg said.

Scott, who suffered head trauma in a bad car accident a year ago, was moving slowly as he got out of the car, he said.

“He’s not an old man, but he’s moving like an old man” in the video, Bamberg said.

Earlier in the day, Bamberg said in a statement that it was “impossible to discern” from the videos what, if anything, Scott was holding in his hands.

Police say Scott was carrying a gun when he approached officers and ignored repeated orders to drop it. His family previously said he was holding a book, not a firearm, and now says it has more questions than answers after viewing two videos recorded by police body cameras.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Kerr Putney has said the video supported the police account of what happened but does not definitively show Scott pointing a gun at officers.

In contrast to the tension in Charlotte, the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, was calm after a white police officer was charged with first-degree manslaughter on Thursday for a fatal shooting also captured on video. Police released a video of an unarmed black man, Terence Crutcher, being shot by the officer after his vehicle broke down on a highway.

Meanwhile, largely peaceful protests dwindled early yesterday as police chose not to enforce a curfew prompted by two nights of riots after a black man was shot to death by a police officer.

The Charlotte Police Department said on Twitter that two officers were treated after they were sprayed with a chemical agent by demonstrators and that no civilians were injured on Thursday.

Despite the brief outbursts, Thursday night’s demonstrations were calmer than those on the previous two nights in North Carolina’s largest city. Rioters had smashed storefront windows, looted businesses and thrown objects at police, prompting officials to declare a state of emergency and a curfew. – Reuters/Herald Reporter

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