“Crutcher, who was black, died next to his SUV that had stopped in the middle of a two-lane road in Tulsa, Okla. Seconds before he was shot, police dashcam and helicopter footage shows, he had walked to his vehicle with his hands held over his head as Officer Betty Shelby walked behind him, her gun raised”.
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“In the matter of the death of Terence Crutcher, I determine that the filing of the felony crime of manslaughter in the first degree against the Tulsa Police officer Betty Shelby is warranted”, Kunzweiler said.
“We reviewed the facts of the allegations”.
Shelby, he said, had already checked the driver’s side of the SUV when Crutcher approached her from the east.
He said he’s not happy about the charge, but said his client will return and turn herself in.
Crutcher’s family has said he was simply having vehicle trouble. Regarding whether Crutcher was using drugs, David Riggs, an attorney for the family said, “We do not know if that’s true or not”.
“So, yes, I was surprised it came back quickly”, he said, adding that he and other Tulsa attorneys he spoke with thought any charges against Shelby were unlikely.
Tiffany Crutcher, his twin sister said, “This is a small victory”.
The police use of force against black men has for two years been the subject of protests across the United States, and now it has also become an election issue. And we must remember that in our justice system, officer Shelby is innocent until proven guilty.
An officer faces first-degree manslaughter charges. We need to pray for wisdom and guidance on each of our respective paths in life.
Another peaceful protest is set for Tuesday in Tulsa.
Tulsa County prosecutors allege in court documents that a white police officer “reacted unreasonably” when she fatally shot an unarmed black man and that she unnecessarily escalated the situation.
Ms Shelby’s lawyer Scott Wood told The New York Times that Crutcher had been behaving erratically and had tried to put his hand in his pocket.
The fatal shooting on September 16 of Terence Crutcher was recorded by police auto dashboard cameras and a police helicopter camera in that city in Oklahoma. They both show the 40-year-old Crutcher walking with his hands in the air toward his stopped SUV, which is straddling the centre line.
No dashcam footage exists from Shelby’s auto because she did not activate the emergency lights, which would have switched on the camera, when she came upon the abandoned vehicle in the roadway. The video shows him falling to the ground and blood spreading across his white T-shirt.
There was no weapon found in the auto.
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 man warned that it was going to blow up, the caller said.
Betty and her team were headed to an unrelated domestic violence call on September 16 when they discovered Terence’s auto in the middle of the street.
She stopped behind his auto, which was a block away.
Police sergeant Dave Walker has said investigators found a vial of the drug PCP in Mr Crutcher’s vehicle. “When she began following Mr. Crutcher to the vehicle with her duty weapon drawn, she was yelling for him to stop and get on his knees repeatedly”.
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Officer Betty Shelby manslaughter.
