Many chanted “Fire Betty”, in reference to officer Betty Shelby, who fatally shot Crutcher on Friday night after responding to a report of a stalled vehicle.
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Wood said Shelby fired only after Crutcher reached his left hand into the car’s window.
The officer who shot and killed Crutchers is white female officer Betty Shelby.
Video released by the police department Monday showed Officer Betty Shelby, who is white, shoot Crutcher after his vehicle had stalled in the middle of the street. It’s not clear from the footage what led Betty Shelby, the officer who fired the fatal shot, to draw her gun or what orders officers gave Crutcher.
“A Tulsa Police officer murdered Terence Crutcher in cold blood”, Kiesel said.
But Damario Solomon-Simmons, another attorney for Crutcher’s family, said Shelby and other officers had no way of knowing about Crutcher’s background or the potential for drugs in his vehicle when they approached him Friday.
Speaking to reporters outside the Tulsa County Courthouse on Tuesday afternoon, Benjamin Crump, who is representing the dead man’s family, said that a streak of Crutcher’s blood on the glass, visible in a still image taken from the helicopter video, proved that the vehicle window was closed when he was shot. Crutcher was seen with his hands up and walking toward his SUV when Selby fires one shot, killing the man. Crutcher’s head then drops, leaving him lying completely out in the street. “That’s the great thing about video.it has no biases”, he said.
“There were several officers on the scene”, Crump said. She had yelled repeatedly that he should get down and stop walking, but Crutcher kept going, placing his hands in his pockets, where she also feared there could be a weapon, Wood said.
Police said they received two calls of a auto being broken down and blocking a road.
Attorneys for Crutcher’s family said that even if he was under the influence of some substance, “in no way is this an appropriate way to treat him”.
Kunzweiler, elected in 2014, was the DA when charges were brought against Robert Bates, a reserve deputy later convicted of manslaughter for fatally shooting an unarmed man in 2015 in Tulsa when he mistakenly fired his handgun instead of his stun gun. One unidentified caller said the driver was acting strangely, adding, “I think he’s smoking something”.
Crutcher did not acknowledge Shelby’s command to get on his knees and simply raised his hands and starting walking to the vehicle, Wood said.
We the People Oklahoma will hold a “protest for justice” at 6 p.m.at Tulsa’s Civic Center Plaza over Friday’s shooting death of Terence Crutcher.
After that, someone on the police radio can be heard saying, “Shots fired”.
The officer then told dispatchers that Crutcher was not cooperating.
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Wood also said that Shelby has been receiving death threats. Shelby is on paid administrative leave. When asked why police did not provide immediate assistance, MacKenzie said: “I don’t know that we have protocol on how to render aid to people”. Her husband was in the police helicopter that recorded the shooting. “We have one suspect down”. Tulsa police say Crutcher didn’t have a gun. Such a charge could be filed, for instance, against an officer who grabs and shoots a handgun mistaking it for a stun gun, Berlin said.
