Protests in Charlotte, NC
© ReutersPolice officers wearing riot gear block a road during protests after police fatally shot Keith Lamont Scott in the parking lot of an apartment complex in Charlotte, North Carolina, U.S. September 20, 2016.
Police unleashed teargas on protesters after they fatally shot a Black man Tuesday afternoon in Charlotte, North Carolina, when they approached him as he was getting out of his car, with relatives and family members rejecting the police's claim that he was armed.

Twelve police officers have been injured in clashes between protesters and police, according to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department. According to Twitter users, protesters have blocked the Interstate 85, or I-85, a major highway in the south east.

The man who was shot and killed was identified late Tuesday as Keith Lamont Scott. The officer who fired the fatal shot was identified as Officer Brentley Vinson, a police statement said. The statement confirmed both men were Black, according to the Charlotte Observer, while the victims family have said he was holding a book, not a firearm.

Local WSOC-TV reported that after the shooting, relatives of the slain man confronted police officers at the scene and a crowd of several dozen people quickly gathered to protest.

A neighbor told the station's reporter Mark Becker that "the man did not have a gun," saying he was "armed with a book," Becker said in a tweet Tuesday as he spoke to people at the scene of the shooting.

Other family members at the scene told Becker that Scott was "reading a book and did not have a weapon." The Root reported that the slain man was disabled without identifying the disability.

The victim's brother told WCNC-TV that the officer involved in the shooting was undercover and not wearing a uniform.

"He was waiting on his son to get from school and police came out with no ... he didn't have on no uniform to determine if he was a police or not ... he was an undercover and he just jumped out and yelled 'gun' and shot at him," the brother said. "I think they shot him four times. I'm not sure, but he's dead."

Scott's sister told the same station that her brother did not have a gun and also said the officer who shot him had no uniform on. "They jumped out their truck. They said, 'Hands up! He got a gun! He got a gun!' Pow, pow, pow, pow," she said. "That's it. He didn't have no gun."

However, the police statement said the man was armed and that the weapon he had was recovered from the scene of the shooting.

Police public affairs officer Keith Trietley said officers from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department were at an apartment complex searching for a suspect with an outstanding warrant, when they saw a man get out of his vehicle with a firearm.

"Officers observed the subject get back into the vehicle at which time they began to approach the subject," he said in a statement to the press.

"The subject got back out of the vehicle armed with a firearm and posed an imminent deadly threat to the officers who subsequently fired their weapon striking the subject," he continued.

WSOC-TV reported the slain man was not the suspect sought by the police officers.

Trietley said the department's internal affairs bureau would conduct a separate investigation, which was standard procedure, and that the officers would be placed on administrative leave.

Police have killed 193 Black people in 2016 alone, according to "The Counted," a database set up by The Guardian to document police killing in the United States. In 2015, over 300 Black people were killed by police in the country.