Nation/World

Keith Scott threatened family, wife said in court papers

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A year before Keith Lamont Scott was shot to death by police in an incident that has convulsed Charlotte, his wife filed an application for a protective order against him that said he owned a firearm and had threatened to kill family members with it.

The document was filed by Rakeyia Scott in October in district court in Gaston County, which is near Charlotte. In a handwritten complaint, Rakeyia Scott asserted that Keith Scott had "hit my 8-year-old in the head a total of three times with his fist" and "kicked me and threaten to kill us with his gun."

Rakeyia Scott added, "He said he is a 'killer' and we should know that."

After the Sept. 20 police shooting of Keith Scott, authorities said they had recovered a gun at the scene. Family members said he did not have a gun with him when he was shot.

Justin Bamberg, a lawyer for the Scott family, said in an interview Tuesday that the assertions Rakeyia Scott made in the court filing had no bearing on the question of whether police officers should have used lethal force in their confrontation with Keith Scott in the parking lot of his Charlotte apartment complex.

[After Charlotte police release videos, family says shooting doesn't make sense]

Police say that they confronted him because officers saw him with a gun and what they believed was a marijuana cigarette, and that they believed he posed a threat to public safety.

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The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department released dashboard- and body-camera videos of the episode that do not show Keith Scott acting aggressively in the moments before an officer fires four shots. The incident was also captured on a video recorded by Rakeyia Scott in which she can be heard telling officers he does not have a gun. None of the videos definitively show whether he had a gun, and if so exactly where the gun was when police confronted him.

"Regardless of what details come out about his past, about what he may or may not have done in the past, nothing changes the footage we've seen," Bamberg said. "And again, at the moment he's shot and killed, he's nonaggressive. His hands are by his sides, we can't tell what if anything he has in his hands, and when he's shot and killed he's actually walking backward."

In a statement, officials in the Police Department said a handgun and an ankle holster had been recovered at the scene after Scott was shot.

In Gaston County in 2015, a magistrate judge issued a protective order the same day Rakeyia Scott filed the complaint stating that Keith Scott owned a firearm.

"He has a 9mm and threatened to use it last night," Rakeyia Scott wrote. "He does not have a permit, he is a felon."

While living in South Carolina in the 1990s, Keith Scott was charged with a number of offenses including check fraud, aggravated assault and carrying a concealed weapon, according to court records. Later, he moved to Texas, where he shot and wounded a man in San Antonio in 2002. He was convicted and sentenced, in 2005, to seven years in prison, records show. He was released in 2011.

Gaston County records show that a deputy sheriff was unable to serve Keith Scott with the October 2015 protective order before a court appearance, when a district court judge extended it by one week. The judge, who concluded that Keith Scott had "committed acts of domestic violence," ordered him to keep away from Rakeyia Scott and forbade him to visit any schools where the couple's children were enrolled.

Officials were unable to serve Keith Scott with that order, either, because he had moved from North Carolina, a court filing said. But by Oct. 16, Rakeyia Scott filed a new notice with the court and asked to end the case.

"He is no longer a threat to me and my family," she wrote.

In a separate interview last week, Bamberg said Rakeyia Scott had been unaware that her husband owned a firearm. On Tuesday, Bamberg said she did not believe he had had a firearm since he returned home in January from a long hospital stay.

Keith Scott was involved in a serious motorcycle accident in November, one month after his wife sought the restraining order against him. He suffered from a traumatic brain injury, Bamberg said, and, upon returning home, "had to relearn how to walk, and relearn other skills."

"She took care of him literally all the time, and as far as she knew, he did not have a gun as of January," Bamberg said.

[Black lawmakers urge Justice Department to do more about police shootings]

Rakeyia Scott also brought a domestic violence complaint in April 2004 in Mecklenburg County, which includes Charlotte. Court records show that she asked a judge to issue a protective order after Keith Scott, according to her account, became violent.

"My husband Keith Scott assaulted me several times by stabbing me in the back almost puncturing my lungs, he sliced me ear and bruised my body," she wrote.

On the complaint, she checked a box indicating that she believed there was "a danger of serious and immediate injury to me or my children."

A judge in Mecklenburg County quickly issued a protective order, but Rakeyia Scott asked the court to dismiss the case just 10 days later. She did not explain why.

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