Cops Shoot Man Holding Gun With Arms Raised

Newly released video of the September police shooting of Rueben Galindo shows the Charlotte man exiting his apartment with his hands raised above his head seconds before officers fatally shot him. Between three and four seconds appear to elapse from when Galindo appears at his doorway, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officers begin to shout orders for him to drop his weapon, and a series of gunshots ring out, the videos show. The 29-year-old then slumps to the ground outside his northeast Charlotte apartment. While police Chief Kerr Putney on Friday continued to defend his officer’s decisions to shoot Galindo, an national expert in police shootings who viewed the videos at the request of the Observer, called the footage “troubling,” and said that Galindo appeared to be trying to comply with two separate police orders – drop it and put the gun down – when he was shot.