This is a developing story, but one we hope will be confirmed and fleshed out more fully very soon.

From WBTV.com:

A police source confirms to WBTV that a gun reportedly found near the body of Keith Lamont Scott has Scott’s fingerprints, DNA and blood on it. The source also told WBTV the case in the gun was loaded.

Scott, 43, was killed Tuesday while police were serving a warrant on another person at The Village at College Downs apartment complex on Old Concord Road.

In a video released by the family Friday, officers can be heard yelling at Scott to “drop the gun” but his wife, who is shooting the video, tells them he doesn’t have one.

Most of you have probably seen the video released by the victim, Keith Scott’s wife. She immediately begins to implore the officers not to shoot her husband, that he had no weapon.

Peel through the expletives, and you will hear her repeatedly urge her husband to get out of the car. She also says, “Don’t do it! Don’t do it!”

I have no idea what she was talking about, or if she was addressing her husband or the police, at that point.

As we have seen in previous cases, such as the false “Hands up, don’t shoot” narrative out of Ferguson, Missouri, agitators will not accept any evidence that runs contrary to their goals – which have far less to do with justice and far more to do with blind rage and revenge at a system that they feel has failed them.

“My understanding is that he did not own a gun, he did not habitually carry a gun,” family attorney Justin Bamberg said.

Police said they did recover a gun.

“I can tell you a weapon was seized – a handgun,” Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Kerr Putney said a press conference Wednesday. “I can also tell you we did not find a book that has been made referenced to.”

Bamberg said he has heard several witness accounts, including that a gun was placed at the scene.

This notion that police officers routinely seek out black men to kill, carrying with them spare guns to plant at the scene, so as to have motive is more science fiction than anything reality-based.

Are there bad actors in law enforcement?

Yes. There really are.

The case of North Charleston, SC police officer Michael Slager comes to mind. He shot a fleeing subject eight times in the back, after the man tried to flee from a traffic stop.

This is not the same as Slager’s case, however.

What the rioters in Charlotte are claiming is that it is open season on black men in the U.S.

It is not.

The fact that it was a black officer who fired the fatal shot at Scott on Tuesday would seem to remove the racial element from the case.

The fact that after Scott’s family viewed the police dash cam footage of the shooting, they went from saying he had no gun to saying it was unclear should further cast doubts on the original push that he was simply reading a book.

I can’t say it enough that this is a horrible thing.

Any loss of life is.

What we can be sure of, based on recent history, is that the rioting will continue, even when all the facts are in.

There will be misery pimps who will not let it go, and will justify the destruction of property, their own racial hatred and bias, and will further promote an ideology of “Them vs. Us,” to the detriment of our nation’s well-being.

I believe in being sensitive to why we have neighbors and friends out there who may feel marginalized in this society, but I also believe in letting facts, logic, and justice anchor our reactions to what are unfortunate circumstances.