Terence Crutcher moments before he was tasered and then shot dead by police officer Betty Shelby.
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“I got a feeling that’s about to happen”, replies the first officer, identified by Mr Wood as Ms Shelby’s husband, Dave Shelby. Shelby was put on paid administrative leave.
Donald Trump says he doesn’t know what a police officer was thinking when she fatally shot an unarmed man in Oklahoma.
Chuck Jordan, Tulsa’s police chief, said Monday at a news conference that no gun was found in Crutcher’s SUV.
“I’ve spoken to many police chiefs and law enforcement leaders who are as deeply concerned as I am – and deeply committed as I am – to reform”, she said. His department released video footage of the shooting Sunday, which Chief Jordan called “very disturbing…very hard to watch”. But after reading from notes about the role of the black church in the civil rights movement and vowing to help struggling black Americans, Trump questioned the Tulsa officer’s reaction in shooting Crutcher, who was unarmed.
The shooting was captured on three cameras, the helicopter and two police dash cams. They both show the 40-year-old Crutcher walking with his hands in the air toward his SUV, which is stopped in the middle of the street and straddling the center line. A female officer is following him.
As Crutcher approaches the driver’s side of the SUV, more officers walk up and Crutcher appears to lower his hands and place them on the vehicle. “And he looked like a really good man”. “To me he looked like somebody that was doing what they were asking them to do”. Then nearly immediately, a woman’s voice yells on the police radio: “Shots fired!” Meanwhile, the Crutcher family is left to protest and grieve over the latest example of anti-black violence by law enforcement. Crutcher, his white shirt stained with blood, lies on the ground alone and unattended for almost two minutes before an officer puts on medical gloves and begins to examine him.
No dashcam footage exists from Shelby’s auto because she didn’t activate her emergency lights which in turn switches on the camera when she came upon the abandoned vehicle in the roadway. But none of the officers was wearing a body camera.
The Rev. Joey Crutcher said Wednesday in NY that his son Terence knew to put his hands up when approached by police.
In dashcam and aerial footage, all doors of Crutcher’s SUV are closed, so there is no view of what is inside.
Seconds later a single shot is fired and Mr Crutcher falls to the ground. The problem right now is staffing, Jordan said. He promised a thorough investigation. Also Tuesday, Sgt. Shane Tuell confirmed Shelby had a stun gun at the time but did not use it.
Earlier this week, Tulsa Police released video and audio recordings of the Crutcher shooting. Shelby’s attorney, Scott Wood, maintains that Crutcher refused to follow more than two dozen commands and that he reached into the open window of the auto before Shelby perceived a threat and shot him.
Wood said Shelby has completed drug-recognition expert training and thought Crutcher was acting like he might be under the influence of PCP.
“It went from ‘Hey man, is this your car?’ all the way up to literally screaming at him to stop what he was doing”, Wood said. She looked into the passenger’s side to make sure no one was on the floor of the vehicle, and as she was getting ready to move to the driver’s side, she turned around and saw Crutcher walking toward her, Wood said. He said she radioed dispatch to report that she was with someone who wasn’t complying with her demands.
Wood said Shelby approached the empty vehicle and saw that the windows were open and that the doors were closed.
He said Crutcher’s head was tilted but his eyes were on Shelby. The engine was running when she got there, which she found odd because she assumed it was either disabled or broken down, he said.
Describing the actions Shelby took at that point, Wood said the officer approached the auto and saw that the windows were open, and that the doors were closed – and that no one was in the vehicle. But an attorney for his family, Benjamin Crump, said the information should not be used to “demonize” Crutcher. “How can he be reaching into the auto if the window is up and there is blood on the glass?” Trump said in a Fox News town hall taping that the tactic that gives police the ability to stop and search anyone they deem suspicious had “worked incredibly well” in New York, where it expanded under former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
The situation in Tulsa is intense for the police department and the community.
“Every day, police officers in our country are serving with extraordinary courage, honor and skill”, Clinton said.
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