Experts point to brain injury in shooting

Associated Press

CHARLOTTE, N.C.

Keith Lamont Scott was a different person after suffering a traumatic brain injury in a motorcycle accident last year. Friends say his medications made him zone out, slurring his words and forgetting what he was saying in the middle of a conversation.

“You could look at him and tell something was wrong,” said Dana Chapman, a former neighbor. “You could walk up to him, you didn’t have to speak. You could look at him and tell there was a problem.”

Scott was killed on Sept. 20 by a Charlotte police officer, prompting days of protests that included another man’s shooting death one riotous night. Snippets of body camera and dash-cam recordings released by the police department show Scott slowly backing out of an SUV. Police say he refused commands to put down a gun.

Scott’s final moments also were recorded by his wife, Rakeyia, in a video shared on social media. She can be heard shouting to police that her husband “doesn’t have a gun, he has a TBI.” She pleads with the officers not to shoot before a burst of gunfire can be heard.

Police Chief Kerr Putney said officers recovered a gun Scott had in his possession, but that none of the videos conclusively show he pointed it at them. Scott’s mother maintains he was holding a Quran.

In any case, neurologists aren’t surprised that someone with a severe traumatic brain injury would be slow to react and have difficulty following instructions, particularly when orders are being shouted by police officers with their weapons drawn.

“They don’t do well in stressful situations,” said Dr. David Brody, professor of neurology at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo. “They often make poor choices or impulsive decisions under stress.”

Brody noted that his comments refer to severe TBIs in general, and that he never saw Scott as a patient. But he said “there’s no way a patient with a TBI who doesn’t know the difference between right and wrong should own a gun or drive a car.”

As Scott’s family prepares for his wake today and his funeral and burial Thursday in James Island, S.C., where his mother lives, more information about the man’s condition and his life has been difficult to come by.

The family stopped talking with the media after Scott’s brother-in-law, Ray Dotch, objected to questions about Scott’s criminal background, saying he shouldn’t have to “humanize him in order for him to be treated fairly.”