The shooting incident occurred before 4:00 p.m. in the parking lot of the Village at College Downs apartment complex, near the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD) officers were searching there for an unrelated suspect with an outstanding warrant. According to CMPD Chief Kerr Putney, officers saw Scott exiting a parked vehicle while holding a handgun, then returning to his vehicle, then exiting again as officers approached him. At a news conference on September 22, Putney stated that Scott did not comply with police officer’s instructions to “drop the weapon”; Putney said: “The officers gave loud, clear, verbal commands which were also heard by many of the witnesses.”Putney described Scott as an “imminent deadly threat.”

Vinson fatally shot Scott. The officer was in plainclothes, wearing a police vest but not a body-worn camera. Three other officers on the scene were in uniform and wearing cameras. Chief Putney said that false rumors had been spread by social media. He told reporters that a handgun was seized at the scene.