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A curfew order was issued in the U.S. city of Charlotte, North Carolina, Thursday night as hundreds of protesters marched relatively peacefully through downtown to protest the fatal police shooting of a black man for the third night.
Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts issued the curfew order, which will go into effect beginning midnight until 6 a.m. next morning, the City of Charlotte said in a tweet.
The curfew will be in effect each day until the end of the state of emergency is declared or until the official proclamation is revoked, it added.
North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory declared a state of emergency in Charlotte on Wednesday night. He also ordered the deployment of the state's National Guard and State Highway Patrol to assist local law enforcement forces in restoring order in the city.
A number of National Guard troops and riot police were monitoring closely the demonstration after two nights of violent unrest, in which 17 police officers were wounded and 44 protesters arrested.
During Thursday's march that started in a park, the protesters once blocked an intersection near the Bank of America headquarters in the business district, local media reports said.
TV video showed that some protesters held up posters saying "Stop killing us," "Resistance is Beautiful," and "Release the tapes."
A big crowd of protesters gathered before the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD), chanting: "We want the tapes."
They demanded police release the video of the fatal shooting of Keith Lamont Scott, a 43-year-old black man, by a police officer Tuesday afternoon.
But CMPD chief Kerr Putney said he has no intention to release the dash cam video of the fatal shooting so that it would not impact the ongoing investigation.
"I'm not going to jeopardize the investigation," he told reporters.
Justin Bamberg, an attorney for Scott's family, said in a statement that the family members had watched the police videos.
"It is impossible to discern from the videos what, if anything, Mr. Scott is holding in his hands," Bamberg said in a statement.
Police have insisted that Scott was holding a gun. The claim was strongly denied by his family which said Scott was holding a book instead of a gun.
Scott was shot as he walked slowly backward with his hands by his side, Bamberg said, while calling on the police to released the police videos to the public.
In another development, a protester, identified as 26-year-old Justin Carr, who was shot in the head by another civilian during Wednesday night's unrest died Thursday. No suspect in the case has been arrested so far.
(APD)
