Crutcher’s family attorney, Benjamin Crump, spoke with WCTV just after the charges were announced on Thursday.
Advertisement
The Department of Justice is investigating Shelby’s use of force.
Shelby’s attorney told an Associated Press reporter that Crutcher was reaching into the window of his SUV.
“I must tell you, I watched the shooting in particular in Tulsa, and that man was hands up”, the Republican nominee said at a church event in Ohio Wednesday morning.
“It’s very unlikely that she told him to ‘put your hands up, turn around and walk to your auto, ‘ because who knows what’s in that vehicle”, said 11Alive legal analyst Phil Holloway, himself a former police officer.
It all started after a 911 call last Friday from a woman who said an abandoned vehicle was blocking the street and a man was running away.
The engine was running when she got there, which she found odd because she assumed it was either disabled or broken down, he said.
Crutcher, 40, was shot dead Friday by Tulsa police Officer Betty Shelby after his SUV stalled in the middle of the road. In this photo made from a September 16, 2016 police video, Terence Crutcher, left, with his arms up is pursued by police officers as he walks next to his stalled SUV moments before he was shot and killed by one of the offi.
According to ABC News, Mr Wood said the police officer had approached the auto and found the doors closed and windows open. As she was inspecting the vehicle to see if anyone was inside, she turned around and saw Crutcher walking toward her.
Wood said that Shelby then said to Crutcher, “Hey, is this your auto?” He said he had instructed his staff to file charges against Shelby at the start of Thursday’s brief news conference.
“I do not know why things happen in this world the way they do”, Kunzweiler said. “Let’s deal with his auto”.
The man continued walking toward his abandoned vehicle with his hands held up and did not respond to Shelby’s demands to stop.
The White House says Obama will continue to get updates on the situations from Attorney General Loretta Lynch and White House adviser Valerie Jarrett. Shelby’s attorney, Scott Wood, has said that Shelby completed drug-recognition expert training and thought Crutcher was acting like he might be under the influence of PCP.
Shelby then radioed in that she had a subject “who is not following commands”.
“You can kind of hear a degree of stress in her voice when she says that”, Mr Wood said.
In the wake of the fatal police shooting of Terence Crutcher, an officer is offering support and protection to the community in a Facebook post that has gone viral.
The Friday shooting was captured by police video, though it’s not clear from that footage what led Tulsa officer Betty Shelby to draw her gun or what orders officers gave Crutcher. Shelby was also concerned about Crutcher repeatedly reaching toward his pockets because a person with a weapon often touches it to make sure it’s still there, Wood said. With his hands in the air?
Advertisement
Crutcher’s family attorneys maintain that the window was up, pointing to the blood spattered on it when he was shot. Before he was sacked he said he was treated like a pariah by other officers who said, “I would have shot him, I would have killed him”. “How can he be reaching into the vehicle if the window is up and there is blood on the glass?”
