One Person Shot During Second Night Of Protests In Charlotte, Police Deploying Tear Gas; UPDATE: National Guard Deployed

UPDATE: The person shot tonight by another civilian is still alive, but on life support. This person is not dead, as originally reported, but remains in critical condition. The post and the headline have been changed as a result. 

UPDATE II: Gov. Pat McCrory has declared a state of emergency for the city of Charlotte and has deployed the National Guard and elements of the State Highway Patrol.

UPDATE III: CNN's Ed Lavendera was attacked, knocked to the ground by a protestor while reporting on the ground to Anderson Cooper.

A second night of protests in Charlotte, North Carolina was marked by police dispersing protestors with tear gas, with one person was shot and is in critical condition (via Charlotte Observer):

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One person was shot and hospitalized with life-threatening injuries during protests in uptown Charlotte Wednesday night, Medic confirmed.

Medic said on Twitter that it was treating the patient for a gunshot wound en route to Carolinas Medical Center at about 8:45 p.m.

The person was shot in the area of North College and East Trade streets, according to Medic.

Medic said it was responding to “multiple incidents uptown related to the situation in the College Street area” but was no more specific.

Moments earlier, police fired tear gas at protesters at the entrance to the Omni Hotel in uptown Charlotte. Loud booms sounded, and police said explosives had been used.

“Your life is in danger, you need to move!” police in riot gear yelled.

The Observer added the protests were mostly centered on Marshall Park and the police headquarters for the city. Like in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Charlotte is dealing with another controversial officer-involve shooting death. On Tuesday, 43-year-old Keith Lamont Scott was shot and killed by police after ignoring multiple warnings from officers to drop his handgun. He refused to comply, though there is an alternative narrative that he had a book in his hand, not a gun (via The Guardian):

Charlotte’s police chief said on Wednesday that officers gave a man numerous clear warnings to drop a handgun before fatally shooting him, at a news conference following a night of clashes on the streets of the North Carolina city that left 16 officers injured.

Kerr Putney, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police chief, said officers were searching for a suspect on Tuesday when they saw 43-year-old Keith Lamont Scott exit a vehicle with a handgun, and mistook him for the wanted man.

He said the officers told Scott, who was black, to drop his gun and that he got out of the vehicle a second time still carrying the gun.

[…]

The police version is at odds with that of Scott’s family, who have insisted that he was disabled, sitting in his car reading a book, and had no gun. “He sits in the shade, reads his book and waits on his kid to get off the bus,” Scott’s sister told reporters. “He didn’t have no gun, he wasn’t messing with nobody.”

It appears that some are conceding that a Scott had a gun, but are saying that North Carolina is an open carry state. As Bob Owens wrote over at our sister site Bearing Arms, there’s a difference between open carry and brandishing. Police were expecting more protests tonight, which have taken a violent turn. Twelve officers were injured during protests on Tuesday night, several have been taken to the hospital tonight. Looting has also begun in the city.

We'll keep you updated.