Thread: Tulsa police officer charged in man's death

Tulsa police officer charged in man's death

September 22, 2016

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In this photo made from a Sept. 16, 2016 police video, Terence Crutcher, left, lowers his right arm as he is pursued by police officers moments before he was shot and killed by one of the officers in Tulsa, Okla. When it comes to charging an officer, legal experts say, the most important determination isn't whether the officer was actually in danger in hindsight. It's whether the officer reasonably believed in his or her own mind that they or fellow officers were in danger at the split second they choose to shoot. There's no clear, standard formula investigators can rely on to answer the question of whether an officer's belief that he or she's in peril is reasonable, a former federal prosecutor in Chicago said. (Tulsa Police Department via AP)


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TULSA, Okla. (AP) -- Prosecutors in Tulsa, Oklahoma, charged a white police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black man on a city street with first-degree manslaughter Thursday.

Tulsa County District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler filed the charges against officer Betty Shelby, who shot and killed 40-year-old Terence Crutcher on Sept. 16. Dashcam and aerial footage of the shooting and its aftermath showed Crutcher walking away from Shelby with his arms in the air.

The footage does not offer a clear view of when Shelby fired the single shot that killed Crutcher. Her attorney has said Crutcher was not following police commands and that Shelby opened fire when the man began to reach into his SUV window.

But Crutcher's family immediately discounted that claim, saying the father of four posed no threat to the officers, and police said Crutcher did not have gun on him or in his vehicle.

Shelby, who joined the Tulsa Police Department in December 2011, was en route to a domestic violence call when she encountered Crutcher's vehicle abandoned on a city street, straddling the center line.

Shelby did not activate her patrol car's dashboard camera, so no footage exists of what first happened between the two before other officers arrived.

The police footage shows Crutcher approaching the driver's side of the SUV, then more officers walk up and Crutcher appears to lower his hands and place them on the vehicle. A man inside a police helicopter overhead says: "That looks like a bad dude, too. Probably on something."

The officers surround Crutcher and he suddenly drops to the ground. A voice heard on police radio says:

"Shots fired!" The officers back away and Crutcher is left unattended on the street for about two minutes before an officer puts on medical gloves and begins to attend to him.

Earlier this year, a former volunteer deputy with the Tulsa County Sheriff's Office was sentenced to four years in prison after he was convicted of second-degree manslaughter in the shooting death of Eric Harris.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/tulsa-pol...203750472.html

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