Was Kajieme Powell Really Holding High a Knife When Shot to Death by Police?

After St. Louis police shot to death 25-year-old Kajieme Powell
yesterday (as mentioned in Elizabeth Nolan Brown’s post
below)—and apparently for good measure cuffed his corpse, says
an eyewitness at the scene of the video below around 2:45—St. Louis
Police Chief Sam Dotson told the press that he was a clear and
present danger to the officers, having, as the St. Louis
Post-Dispatch reported, “pulled out a knife and came at the
officers, gripping and holding it high, Dotson said.” The
Huffington Post reported Dotson as saying
the knife was in an “overhand grip.”

This cell phone video—alas from pretty far away—does not look to
me like Powell was raising his arms. Nor does it show any obvious
sign that I can see of a knife at all, but I can’t be sure of that.
But the position of his arms seems clear enough to me when the
shots that killed him begin, around 1:35 or so of the video.

The video. Yes, it’s disturbing: