By: Kirstin Garriss (’11), TWC News Charlotte
photo credit: TWC News Charlotte
Assignment Desk editor: “Hey Kirstin, we need you to go to an officer-involved shooting.”
Me: “Got it, send me the address, I’m on my way.”
That’s how my afternoon started on Tuesday, September 20, 2016.
Like many journalists, I’ve covered my fair share of shootings. But this shooting quickly became one I’ll never forget.
When I got to the scene, I was live within minutes, reporting the very few details we had from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Kerr Putney. Moments later, I talked with Keith Scott’s brother. The pain in his voice was clear. His pain was the same pain Scott’s children were going through.
Little did I know, just moments after the gunshots, Scott’s daughter, Lyric, streamed live video on Facebook. Her raw reactions and gut wrenching cries shared with thousands on social media.
As a journalist, I vow to tell the truth. But on that particular, Tuesday night we didn’t have much information to work with. We had two different narratives about what happened leading up to those fatal gunshots. Police said Keith Scott had a gun. His family said it was a book.
As daylight turned to nightfall, a crowd started growing by the apartment complex. It was a crowd filled with frustration, anger, pain and their raw emotions poured into the street in the form of chants.
“Black Lives Matter” “It was a book” “No Justice, No Peace”
As their chants got louder, I found myself within inches of police in riot gear – something I’d never seen before up close. Within the blink of an eye, the crowd multiplied from just a few dozen to a few hundred and I was in the middle of it.
And that was just Tuesday.
Over the next few days, Charlotte was thrown head first into the national spotlight. It was surreal to see my city, the city I covered every day for almost a year on the national stage for a story that we were still trying to understand, still trying to piece together.
As an African American journalist, this was a tough story to cover.
This was a story I’d seen before on television from places like Ferguson and Baltimore but I never imagined I would be thrown in the middle of it. I never imagined being on the frontline of a national story like this one.
More than a month later, the national media outlets have come and gone but this story is far from over.
In Charlotte, there are still more conversations to have, more changes to come and when they do, I’ll be there with pen and paper in hand, microphone and camera ready, sharing our story as we continue to heal.
