Ex-LAPD cop: Charlotte Police 'escalated the situation' and are pushing a 'false narrative' about Keith Scott
Former LAPD Sergeant Cheryl Dorsey on CNN Newsroom (Screen capture)
September 24, 2016
Former Los Angeles Police Department Sergeant Cheryl Dorsey appeared on CNN Newsroom on Saturday afternoon and suggested that the Charlotte Police Department is creating a "false narrative" about the death of 43-year-old Keith Lamont Scott, who was killed on Tuesday.
Anchor Poppy Harlow asked Dorsey why the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department waited so long to release body camera video of the Scott shooting and why they only released part of the video in their possession.
"Well, I believe there's something on that video that may be unsettling," Dorsey replied. "Not only to the community but to the family if they were to see it in its entirety."
She continued, "The more we hear about this, the more questions there are to be answered. And at this point, I think that police department is almost in a lose-lose situation, because whatever they produce at this point is going to be suspect."
Harlow asked what the reasoning behind a decision by the CMPD to withhold upsetting video would be when it will all be available at the end of the investigation.
Dorsey said that there has already been unrest associated with Scott's killing.
"And certainly we don't want to see any more destruction or damage done," she said, but the full, unedited video needs to be released.
Dorsey said that the CMPD is going to do what every police department does, "They're going to throw buckets of money at the family. There will be no substantive change in the way their officers do business. And this will go on until we have the next Keith Scott or Philando Castile or Sandra Bland. That's why everybody is so frustrated."
Later in the segment, Dorsey explained the officers can only use lethal force "of a type that is commensurate with what type of resistance a suspect is producing." If an officer is faced with a suspect who may fire, they have a right and a duty, she said, to stop them.
"But here's the problem, Poppy," Dorsey said. Because we don't have the full video, we must rely on the officers' testimony about what actually occurred. "And officers sometimes say things that are not factual."
"It seems the officers escalated that situation, and are now creating a false narrative," she said.
Watch the video, embedded in two parts below:
Part One:
Part Two:
Part Three: