“We reviewed the facts of the allegations”. Wood said Shelby recalled Crutcher mumbling incoherently when she asked him if the SUV belonged to him. 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. Police say one officer tasered Crutcher, and then Shelby shot him.
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The Tulsa County affidavit, filed with the charge against Officer Shelby, accuses her of “escalating the situation from a confrontation with Mr Crutcher”.
Tulsa Mayor Dewey Bartlett praised the police department for quickly providing evidence to the district attorney.
Solomon-Simmons said it would be a “long journey to justice”, noting that neither charges nor a conviction would “bring Terence back”.
“The chain breaks here”.
She went on to say “We are going to break the chain of injustice”. “We know the history”.
Gov. Mary Fallin issued a statement, saying she prays that the decision to charge Shelby brings “some peace to the Crutcher family and the people of Tulsa”.
“We will stay vigilant as this process moves forward and join the others, peacefully, in demanding greater accountability and transparency from law enforcement”, she said. The incident was caught on police helicopter and dashcam video. He walks away from Shelby toward his vehicle.
Responding to the charges during a news conference, the victim’s twin sister Tiffany Crutcher applauded the quick action of the district attorney.
Tulsa Policed offer gunned down an unarmed black man whose auto accidentally blocked the road. Last year, Kunzweiler charged a 73-year-old reserve sheriff’s deputy with second-degree manslaughter for fatally shooting Eric Harris, an unarmed black man. Is it going beyond the call of duty or a grave abuse of authority? Shelby, en route to a domestic violence call, encounters the abandoned vehicle and eventually radios into dispatch, “Hold traffic”.
He said she drew her handgun after Crutcher walked toward the police car’s passenger side and started to put his hand in his left pocket.
The five-year department veteran in turn told investigators she feared for her life after she thought she saw Cruthcer reaching for a weapon from inside his auto. Then she saw Crutcher and talked to him.
Crutcher’s family lawyers have disputed that he reached inside his vehicle, saying video evidence shows the car’s windows were up and blood seen on the windows corroborates that the windows were rolled all the way up at the time of the shooting.
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This would indicate she had checked whether there was a gun on the driver’s side of the vehicle.
