Keith Scott’s Gun

The Charlotte Observer reports that police claim the gun they recovered from the scene of Keith Scott’s shooting (which they say had his fingerprints on it) was stolen — and that they have on record the thief saying he sold it to Scott. I had not heard this:

The Observer has reported that Scott was convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in 2005, after he shot and injured a man in San Antonio, Texas. He fired more than 10 rounds from a 9-millimeter pistol, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice told the Observer.

In October 2015, Scott’s wife, Rakeyia, filed for a restraining order against him, the Observer has reported. In her petition, she said that law enforcement officials should consider her husband a potential threat because he carried a 9-millimeter gun.

More on Scott’s violent criminal history:

NBC Charlotte has learned that Rakeyia Scott, the wife of Keith Scott, filed a restraining order against her husband in October 2015.

“He hit my 8-year-old in the head a total of three times with his fist,” and “he kicked me and threaten(ed) to kill us last night with his gun,” the restraining order reads. “He said he is a killer and we should know that.”

Rakeyia marked ‘yes’ when the order asked if there was any reason law enforcement should consider the defendant a potential threat. Written in was a statement saying her husband carries a “9mm black,” apparently referencing a gun.

The restraining order was dropped eleven days after being filed in October 2015.

Scott’s record has also been subject to scrutiny. He had prior convictions in Gaston County for assault with a deadly weapon and in Texas he served more than eight years for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and evading arrest. Scott’s attorney for his Texas case says he shot a man he believed was threatening his family.

Eight years in prison on a felony conviction — and that felony conviction made it illegal for him to own a firearm. But he had one anyway.

Now, the police didn’t know that Scott had a criminal history, including an eight-year prison stint for gun violence, when they told him to drop the gun, but if he was a violent man — as his criminal record shows he was — then it is plausible that he behaved foolishly and dangerously in front of the police that day. This is especially true if he had been smoking pot, as the police say (cops released photos of what they say was his gun, his ankle holster, and the blunt he had been smoking).

So far, no footage has come out showing exactly what Scott was doing with his hands when police say he was holding a gun in it. But the cops are on video screaming at him 10 or 12 times to “drop the gun.” In order for the police to be clearly in the wrong here, you have to demonstrate that they planted the gun at the scene of the shooting. If you accept that Scott did have a gun, then you have to believe that this provably violent man, a man with a record of serious gun violence, did nothing wrong when confronted by police. And you have to believe that the police had no good reason to think that the armed man standing in front of them, a man who refused to drop the gun after being ordered to many times by police ordering him to do so, threatened their lives.