Protests and distrust between the public and the police in Charlotte show no sign of abating weeks after the fatal police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott.

“We will continue the protests until our demands are met,” said Ashley Williams, an organizer with Charlotte Uprising, a group fighting to end state violence against Black people, in a phone interview.

The list of ten demands includes an independent investigation into Scott’s killing and the release of related videos and the names of all the officers involved, “followed by their firing, arrest and prosecution.”

Organizers in Charlotte and in at least seven cities across the nation—including Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, and New York—held rallies last week to fight against what activists call the systemic and continued discrimination of people of color.

An hour before a Charlotte Uprising event last Tuesday, and less than a quarter mile away, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD) held a ceremony for the National Day of Remembrance for Murder Victims.

“We do this every year to recognize some of the murder victims in this area,” Rob Tufano, a CMPD spokesperson, told Rewire.

The event had nothing to do with police shootings that drew about 100 people to the Marshall Park “uprising” to march down the street to the police station carrying two caskets. But, as local residents suggested in interviews with Rewire, that is exactly the problem.

Rev. Rodney S. Sadler, associate professor at the Union Presbyterian Seminary in Charlotte, said police-organized events could be “an opportunity to find common ground, consider what is upsetting the protesters.”

He said he had not heard of the memorial CMPD organized Tuesday, which some feared could further fuel the divide and distrust simmering between the police and the public there.

“I appreciate the fact that they are trying to address the issue, but I hope they do not conflate police killings with larger murders and address it honestly,” he said. “When police kill citizens, it evokes a very different response.”

Williams said about eight to ten officers tried to stop protesters from marching by creating blockades with their bikes. The marchers did not engage police and ignored the barriers, she said, but it was yet another display of “an overwhelming amount of force” for a citizens’ event.

Involved in several protests since Scott was shot on September 20, Williams said the action organized by Charlotte Uprising “was very unique because it was performatory.”

The caskets represented Scott, 43, and Justin Carr, 26, a Black protester who was fatally shot in the head during a protest the day after Scott’s death.

Police have indicted Rayquan Borum, a 21-year-old Black civilian, with Carr’s murder, citing surveillance videos. However, eyewitness accounts have been conflicting; some said a civilian shot Borum, others said riot police did.

Last week’s “uprising,” named “No more strange fruit,” hosted a write-in asking for Borum’s release as well, Williams said.

The event was named after the 1939 song sung by Billie Holiday that paints a picture of lynchings in the South and Black men hanging from trees.

The Scott shooting and police response to the protests “could have been handled better,” said Kass Ottley, founder and CEO of the Seeking Justice Consortium. She said officers were downright rude and used unnecessary force in dealing with protesters, further fueling the violence.

“I think there is a real disconnect between the community and the police. Many of [the police] have no experience dealing with people of color, and many of them aren’t from the community,” she said. “The hope is really reform. The lack of police response [to protesters’ demands] here sows distrust.”

A Charlotte resident, Ottley said she would not have believed it “if I wasn’t treated like a criminal.”

She said she was recently shoved by an officer at one of the protests and teargassed at another, while a girlfriend who was arrested at a hike this weekend can’t be released because of police stacking up charges against her.

“I now have no trust in the police here, and that is sad,” she said. “They need to know how to de-escalate the situation.”

Given the continued repressive police tactics, Charlotte Uprising has no interest in meeting with them “as long as they continue to kill Black people,” Williams said.

Ray Shawn McKinnon, a pastor of the South Tryon Community United Methodist Church, told Rewire that it is time for the nation to look beyond the Southern hospitality and charm of Charlotte and look into the problems of the city; to address policies and priorities; and to increase access to housing, jobs, health care and justice for all residents, he said.

“The status quo is not an option any more,” he said. “It is time to deconstruct the system that has kept down all people of color, not just Black people.”

Late last Tuesday, 19 days after Scott was shot, CMPD finally released both the body camera and dashboard camera footage of the incident on request of Scott’s family after they viewed it.

Criminology experts who viewed the videos said they are inconclusive in deciding whether Officer Brentley Vinson is at fault, and they discussed de-escalating tactics but declined to pass judgment on the shooting, as the New York Times reported.

North Carolina NAACP President William Barber, who joined a group of clergy in the streets of Charlotte last week, said in a New York Times op-ed that the protests there are not reflective of Black versus white, and they are not Black versus police strife. “The protesters are Black, white and brown people, crying out against police brutality and systemic violence. If we can see them through the tear gas, they show us a way forward to peace with justice,” Barber wrote.

Few cried out or declared a state of emergency, he added, when Charlotte’s schools were resegregated, when immigration officers netted undocumented teens at bus stops, when the war on drugs inundated Black neighborhoods with police, and when the legislature refused to expand Medicaid, denying half a million citizens health insurance.

“We cannot have a grown-up conversation about race in America until we acknowledge the violent conditions engendered by government policy and police practice,” Barber wrote.