Attorney General Loretta Lynch indicated Thursday that the Obama administration would prefer that police in Charlotte, N.C., release the video showing an officer shooting and killing a black man, a step police so far are refusing to take.
“I’m not going to give specific guidance to the police department right now, since we’re monitoring the situation,” Lynch said in Washington, D.C.
“I think that what we have seen, however, is that in situations where information is released, even when that information is painful to watch or difficult to see, certainly from a personal perspective or for the family member of someone, that the act of providing greater transparency is more helpful than not,” she added.
“And when we have seen more information being provided, that usually helps the situation,” Lynch said.
Thursday morning, the chief of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said the video would not be released yet, and that it would only be shown to the family of the victim, 43-year-old Keith Lamont Scott.
While Lynch made it clear that she would favor a decision to release the tape, she wasn’t clear how Charlotte police are handling the issue.
“For example, I don’t know if they set up a procedure to release the tape,” she said. “I don’t have that information right now.”
Lynch’s department announced Thursday that it was sending four conflict resolution experts to Charlotte to deal with issues surrounding the lack of trust many people in the city now have toward police officers.
