Solomon-Simmons said it would be a “long journey to justice”, noting that neither charges nor a conviction would “bring Terence back”.
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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. When it comes to charging an officer, legal experts say, the most important determination isn’t whether the officer was actually in danger in hindsight.
She said the family is focusing on celebrating Terence Crutcher’s life and will push for increased transparency and accountability from law enforcement. Police claimed he was not following orders, and that Shelby fired a single shot after seeing him reach into his vehicle.
In a court filing, the Tulsa district attorney’s chief investigator Doug Campbell said Mr Crutcher was shot when reaching into his car’s driver’s side front window.
‘How could he be reaching into the auto if the window is up and there is blood on the glass?’ The Crutcher family’s civil rights lawyer, Benjamin Crump asked reporters at a news conference on Tuesday afternoon.
It says Crutcher was wearing “baggy clothes” but that Shelby “was not able to see any weapons or bulges indicating a weapon was present”. He was tasered by one of four officers on the scene and then fatally shot by Officer Shelby, a member of the police force since 2011.Shelby was placed on paid administrative leave while the investigation began.
There was no weapon found in the vehicle. He was mumbling to himself and would not answer any of Officer Shelby’s questions. Video footage of the shooting from a helicopter and dash cam shows Crutcher had his hands up before the officer fired on him.
Shelby and other officers responded to a call to investigate a vehicle stopped in the middle of one of the city streets.
Officer Shelby posted a $50,000 (£38,000) bond and was released at 01:31 (05:31 GMT) on Friday, minutes after arriving for a booking photo, according to jail records.
Following the shooting, Shelby’s attorney told The New York Times that she thought Crutcher had a gun, and that he “acted erratically, refused to comply with several orders, tried to put his hand in his pocket and reached inside his vehicle window” before she shot him.
Video footage released earlier this week – recorded by a police helicopter and a dashboard camera and released by the Tulsa Police Department – show Crutcher walking toward his vehicle with his arms raised and then placing his hands on the top of the auto.
“At that time Mr. Crutcher was shot by Officer Shelby”. According to his family, his vehicle had broken down, but Betty’s attorney says that when approached by police he began acting odd.
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Mr Kunzweiler said a warrant has been issued for the officer’s arrest and arrangements were being made with her lawyer for her surrender.
