Georgia Tech police fatally shot the president of the Pride Alliance student group Saturday night in full view of dorm residents.
Police encountered Scout Schultz, a 21-year-old computer engineering student who identified as neither male nor female, in a parking lot outside the dorms after someone called 911 to report “a person with a knife and a gun,” according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
Schultz wasn’t holding a gun in video recorded from a window above the parking lot shortly before midnight, as the campus was placed on lockdown.
But the student was armed with a knife, the bureau wrote in a statement.
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, it appeared to be a pocket knife with the blade tucked in.
Nevertheless, video shows officers repeatedly telling Schultz to drop the weapon as the student advances.
“Come on man, let’s drop the knife,” an officer with his gun drawn says in the graphic video. But Schultz walks toward him.
“Shoot me!”
The officer keeps backing up, moving behind a parking barricade and imploring again: “Nobody wants to hurt you, man.”
At least four officers had surrounded Schultz, according to WSB-TV. In the video, one of the officers called out to the student, who consequently turned away from the barricade and began to move toward the new voice.
“What are we doing here?” the officer asked. No reply.
“Do not move!”
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“Drop it!” someone says finally, as Schultz takes three more steps toward an officer, followed by the report of a gunshot and many screams.
Schultz had been shot in the heart, according to the Journal-Constitution, and died early Sunday at an Atlanta hospital — one of about 700 people shot and killed by police in the United States this year.
Citing the state investigation into its officers actions, Georgia Tech declined to comment on the incident — though a spokesman called it a “tragic death.”
“For members of the community who knew Scout personally, the shock and grief are particularly acute.” the university’s dean of students, John Stein, wrote in a statement obtained by NBC News.
Had a great time tabling for Pride at FASET today! Always fun to greet the incoming first-years and get a glance at the…
Posted by Pride Alliance at Georgia Tech on Monday, July 17, 2017
Schultz’s mother, Lynne Schultz, told the Journal-Constitution that she at first assumed her child had been killed at a protest.
She described Schultz as a “scary smart” perfectionist troubled by depression — a fourth-year student who took master’s degree courses and planned to design biomedical devices after graduation, but who had tried to commit suicide by hanging two years ago.
She and her husband have since hired a lawyer, and plan to speak out more on the incident later.
“Why didn’t they use some nonlethal force, like pepper spray or Tasers?” Lynne Schultz asked the newspaper.
Campus police didn’t carry stun guns, a spokesman for Georgia Tech told CNN.
While the state’s investigative bureau referred to Schultz as a male — “Scott Schultz” — the student and their family used the pronoun “them.” Schultz described themselves as “bisexual, nonbinary, and intersex,” on the website for Pride Alliance.
“When I’m not running Pride or doing classwork I mostly play DD and try to be politically active,” Schultz wrote.
In a statement, Pride Alliance called its late president the “driving force” behind the LGBT group for the past two years.
“They pushed us to do more events and a larger variety events, and we would not be the organization we are known as without their constant hard work and dedication,” the statement reads.
“We love you Scout and we will continue to push for change.”
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