PHOTO/TROY HULL

Charlotteans took to the streets last year to protest the shooting death of Keith Scott by Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police.

What has Charlotte done since Keith Scott was shot and killed by a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police officer last year?

A Sept. 13 community forum will bring neighborhood, social and political leaders together to discuss the city’s path in the wake of protests that ensued after Scott was killed by Officer Brentley Vinson. The forum, sponsored by Consolidated Media Alliance, which includes The Charlotte Post, QCity Metro and Mosaic Communications, will be held at the Mint Museum Uptown at 6:30 p.m. PNC Bank is the title sponsor; the North Carolina Humanities Council is the contributing sponsor. You can RSVP at eventbrite.com.

“The biggest thing was after the shooting, everybody came out and said a lot of things that needed to happen to keep this from happening again,” said Post Publisher Gerald Johnson. “Now that we are just about a year from this happening, we want to take a look and see what has transpired and what has been put in place based on all the conversation everybody had when this was taking place.”

Johnson said the forum’s goal is not to debate the circumstances of the fatal confrontation. Rather, it will open dialogue on whether the larger community has followed through on pledges made after the shooting.

“We aren’t trying to re-litigate the situation in terms of trying to prove who’s right or wrong in this issue,” he said. “It’s a matter of ‘OK, it happened… What has changed? That’s the big question.”

Shortly after the shooting, Charlotte City Council pledged changes in a ”Letter to the Community” to acknowledge “the anger, frustration and need expressed both in the streets and in our Council Chamber” since Scott was killed, sparking several days of sometimes-violent protesters.

“We have been working to address many of these concerns, and we can and will take additional action,” council members wrote. “We commit to you that our approach will be inclusive, and we value all voices in this process. We must enact policies, initiate programs and collaborate meaningfully to do this work together.”

Community activists demanded changes in city government and CMPD, including the resignation of the entire council, Mayor Jennifer Roberts and CMPD Chief Kerr Putney. SAFE Coalition, Charlotte Uprising and the North Carolina NAACP demanded the redirection of funding to train police to the standards of a Charlotte Civil Liberties Resolution and the Obama administration’s Council on 21st Century Policing within a year. They also wanted a citizens panel to review CMPD training as well as expansion of subpoena power to the Citizens Review Board.

City Council acknowledged Charlotte’s overall wealth glosses over economic inequities that hamper upward mobility of low-income residents who struggle to find affordable housing and jobs that pay a livable wage.

“Our challenges are no different than in other places in this country,” the council wrote.

Council pledged to focus on three key areas:

• Safety, trust and accountability

• Safe, quality and affordable housing

• Good paying jobs

The panel also backed CMPD Chief Kerr Putney’s efforts to improve trust and accountability between police and the community. “We will also continue to review and implement the recommendations from the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing,” the panel wrote last year.

The council pledged to accelerate funding for 5,000 workforce and affordable housing units over three years and look to invest $1 million in a new workforce development program for young adults and “individuals with multiple barriers to employment.” A report issued last month found that the city has achieved 44 percent of the housing goal.

“We ask our federal, state and local partners across the public, private and non-profit sectors to join us,” council members said in the statement. “This is just a start with more to follow. Through it all, we ask that you hold us accountable as we build a stronger and more inclusive Queen City.”

Under political and community pressure, CMPD released body and dash cam video of the encounter between Scott and police. Activists insist Scott’s death is another incident where African American lives are devalued.

Bree Newsome, the Charlotte activist who gained international attention for hauling down the Confederate battle flag from South Carolina’s statehouse grounds in 2015, insisted black communities are systematically marginalized by official and economic policy as much as law enforcement.

“It is important to point out that the amount of anger and hurt that is being felt in the wake of the police killing of Keith Scott is not so much about the police killing” an individual, she said at the Charlotte Uprising press conference. “It’s about the continued violence African American communities in Charlotte have faced for decades from the police and the city and local governments. Money has been deliberately divested from these communities. There is no investment in the schools in these communities; there is no investment in jobs programs in these communities. These communities have been redlined since the ‘60s.”

Bishop Claude Alexander of The Park Church noted Charlotte’s resilience to a similar crisis 20 years ago when three fatal police shootings of African Americans within a two-year span threatened to split the city. Dialogue between city officials and African Americans brought a citizens review panel that gave civilians an avenue to seek redress for police misconduct.

“This community did not fall apart,” he said last year. “It did not crumble. Men and women of good will in a common desire for country and the city came together. They prayed, they asked hard questions, they dealt with structural issues and change occurred.”

The forum, Johnson maintains, is a step in making sure Charlotte holds itself accountable.

“Something, in terms of moving in a direction or putting things in place, or at least having conversations about things that you want to see happen – that should be happening,” he said. “It’s been a year out and it’s not heavy on anybody’s mind anymore. It’s beginning to vanish, and Charlotte, like most other places after a period of time, we start forgetting and losing the emotional impact it had on the city.”

Comments