The Obama administration’s Justice Department will send conflict resolution experts to Charlotte, N.C., to try to quell the violent unrest over the death of Keith Lamont Scott, a black man who was shot by police Tuesday afternoon.
A Justice Department spokesman told the Washington Examiner that staffers from its Community Relations Service will be deploying to Charlotte, but couldn’t confirm the timing of their arrival.
The department’s Community Relations Service provides conflict resolution specialists across the nation “to promote peaceful resolution of conflicts and tensions,” according to the DOJ’s website.
“The Community Relations Service is the department’s ‘peacemaker’ for community conflicts arising from differences of race, color, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion and disability,” the website says.
“CRS is not an investigatory or prosecutorial agency, and it does not have any law enforcement authority,” it notes.
North Carolina declared a state of emergency Wednesday after shots were fired at a Charlotte protest Wednesday night and at least three people were struck and one person, initially reported as deceased, is on life support in the hospital. The individual on life support was not shot by police, authorities said.
In what appears to be a separate incident, several police officers were reportedly taken to area hospitals with gunshot wounds, according to the local NBC station in Charlotte.
North Carolina Gov. Pat McGrory declared the emergency and approved the Charlotte police chief’s request for state troopers.
