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State of emergency declared in US city Charlotte amid violent protests
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A state of emergency was declared in the US city of Charlotte, North Carolina, Wednesday as the second night of protests against a fatal police shooting of a black man turned violent.
The declaration was issued by North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory, who ordered the deployment of the state's National Guard and State Highway Patrol to assist with local law enforcement forces to restore the order in the city.
"Any violence directed toward our citizens or police officers and destruction of property should not be tolerated," McCrory said in a statement.
Rioters occasionally clashed with local police Wednesday night in a tense standoff in downtown Charlotte as hundreds of protesters, mostly African Americans, gathered for the second night to protest the fatal shooting of Keith Lamont Scott, a 43-year-old black man, on Tuesday.
Police repeatedly deployed tear gas to disperse the crowd of protesters.
One protester was reportedly shot and seriously wounded by a civilian, during the protests. Some reports said he died at a hospital.
Several police officers and two employees of the Hyatt Hotel uptown were wounded in the riots, local media reports said.
Some protesters were seen on TV video footage smashing windows of buildings along the streets, and setting contents in trash cans on fire.
One Video footage posted online showed some rioters broke into one restaurant, named The Garden Grille and Bar, and smashed the windows of the front doors.
As of midnight, some rioters blocked traffic on the highway I-277 at the Caldwell Bridge, while throwing objects at passing vehicles.
The protests and violence were triggered off by a fatal shooting incident Tuesday afternoon.
Police officer identified as Brentley Vinson, also an African American, shot and killed Scott at an apartment complex Tuesday afternoon while searching for someone with an outstanding warrant.
Police said Scott was holding a gun when he was exiting the car, a claim strongly denied by his family which insisted that he was only holding a book instead of a gun.
The incident immediately sparked protests Tuesday evening when hundreds of African Americans gathered at The Village at College Downs apartment complex on the Old Concord Road, where the shooting occurred, demanding for justice.
Some protesters chanted "Black lives matter" and "Hands up, don't shoot."
The protests quickly turned violent when protesters surrounded the police in riot gear. They threw glass bottles, rocks and garbage at the police and vandalized several police cars at the scene. The police used tear gas to disperse the protesters.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD) said early Wednesday that more than 12 officers were wounded in the clashes Tuesday night.
The latest violence and riots again highlight the tense racial relations in the US between the police and African Americans, who have long complained about racial discrimination by police and the racial profiling that often leads to the police killing of innocent black people.
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