Tulsa officer is charged in fatal shooting
Manslaughter filing follows public outcry over video showing Terence Crutcher with his hands up.
TULSA, Okla. — Prosecutors in Tulsa moved swiftly to file first-degree manslaughter charges Thursday against a white, female police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black man who had been stranded in his disabled SUV.
The unusual felony charges were filed less than a week after 40-year-old Terence Crutcher was shot on a stretch of darkened highway after officers stopped to investigate. A father of four, Crutcher was returning from a community college class when he was approached by first one, and then eventually four police officers.
Police Officer Betty Shelby told interviewers she was afraid Crutcher was going to kill her. But an investigator concluded that Crutcher was actually walking away with his hands up. When he did not respond to her verbal commands to stop, the investigator said, Shelby became “emotionally involved to the point that she overreacted.”
The fatal shooting had quickly become part of the growing roll call of police shootings that has set the tone for the nation’s conversation on race relations.
Since the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014, the string of officer-involved shootings has given visibility and momentum to the Black Lives Matter movement, renewed debate over proper police training and added sharp edges to the presidential campaign.
Even as Shelby was being charged, members of the Congressional Black Caucus in Washington stood outside the Department of Justice and demanded a stronger, tougher response from Atty. Gen. Loretta Lynch to repeated instances of police shooting black men.
“We must do something to end this assault on our
communities,” said Rep. Maxine Waters, the wellknown Los Angeles Democrat. “We will not continue to ask our constituents to be patient without any hope for change.”
Tulsa County Dist. Atty. Steve Kunzweiler appeared determined to head off turmoil in a city with a long and fraught history of racial discord by establishing that the criminal justice system can work.
“I do not know why things happen in this world the way they do. We need to pray for wisdom and guidance on each of our respective paths in life,” he said.
Attorney Benjamin L. Crump, representing Crutcher’s family, called on the case to be prosecuted vigorously.
“Through the vivid slowmotion video witnessed around the world, America once again witnessed the tragic death of another person of color, gunned down senselessly by an officer who swore to protect and serve,” he said in a statement.
“Make no mistake, it was clear from the beginning that charges were necessary in this case. The officer responsible for the death of Terence Crutcher had to be brought to justice to be held accountable for her actions. We remain optimistic that the state attorney will now do his job, and vigorously prosecute the officer to the fullest extent of the law, bringing some form of justice to the Crutcher family.”
Activists who had been demanding a response to the shooting also applauded the prosecutors’ decision.
“There’s no celebration. Because Terence is still deceased,” Marq Lewis, leader of the group We the People of Oklahoma, said at a news conference after the announcement. “But what there is is a relief and an ease that the system has worked.”
The swift decision to file criminal charges against a uniformed officer in Oklahoma stood in contrast to the smoldering discord in Charlotte, N.C., where the city’s police chief has refused to release police video of the fatal shooting of a black man who police say was armed. The family said it was a book, not a gun, the man was clutching when he was shot. The incident has drawn loud and violent street protests.
In releasing multiple videos of the fatal shooting in Tulsa, the city’s police chief advised that the images were “disturbing” and vowed to “achieve justice.”
Protesters demanded that Shelby be fired, and the Crutcher family called for criminal charges against the officer, who remains on routine administrative leave. The Department of Justice has opened a civil rights investigation and local authorities are independently investigating the shooting.
Police videos show Crutcher walking toward his SUV with his hands up. Four officers, three male and one female, approach Crutcher as he walks to the driver’s side and seems to lower his hands and put them on the car. A man in the helicopter video suggests it’s “time for a Taser” before saying, “That looks like a bad dude, too. Probably on something.”
Within seconds, Crutcher drops to the ground. “Shots fired!” a woman yells on police radio as officers slowly back away while holding their guns up. Officers wait more than two minutes before approaching Crutcher again.
Shelby’s attorney, Scott Wood, said that when she showed up and asked Crutcher whether the car was his, he did not respond. Crutcher put his hands in his pockets as he walked toward her, then removed them and put his hands up before walking toward the back of her patrol car and putting his hands back in his pockets, Wood said.
Wood said Shelby fired her gun at the same time that a second officer fired a Taser at Crutcher because she had “tunnel vision” and did not realize other officers were on scene.
“When unarmed people of color break down on the side of the road, we’re not treated as citizens needing help. We’re treated as, I guess, criminals — suspects that they fear,” said Crump, one of the attorneys representing the Crutcher family.
David Riggs, another family attorney, said there was nothing in the video to suggest Crutcher was dangerous.
Police said they found PCP in Crutcher’s car, but family attorneys, while not confirming that discovery, dismissed the possibility as playing a role in his death. A toxicology report is pending. Attorneys also contend that Crutcher’s driver’s side window was up and left smeared with blood after he was shot, suggesting that police had no reason to fear him reaching into the car for a weapon.
Crutcher’s twin sister, Tiffany, choked up as she spoke to the media over the weekend.
“Just know that our voices will be heard. Let’s protest. Let’s do what we have to do, but let’s just make sure that we do it peacefully,” said Tiffany Crutcher, who celebrated a birthday with her brother a month ago.
Police tactics in Tulsa, the second-largest city in Oklahoma, have come under increased scrutiny. The shooting comes four months after Tulsa County volunteer deputy Robert Bates was sentenced to four years in prison on a manslaughter charge after shooting and killing Eric Harris, an unarmed black man, during an undercover operation in 2015. The white reserve deputy said he mistakenly reached for his gun instead of his Taser.
Across the U.S., fatal shootings in recent years resulted in a handful of murder or manslaughter charges against police officers, and winning convictions in such cases can be difficult.
“It may be that the prosecution is making a rational judgment, but getting a conviction against a police officer is very difficult,” said Jody David Armour, a USC law professor. “Jurors just don’t convict, even when there is compelling evidence.”
There was one such conviction earlier this year. Former New York Police Officer Peter Liang was found guilty in February of manslaughter for killing Akai Gurley, an innocent, unarmed black man, when he fired a shot while patrolling a dark stairwell in a Brooklyn housing project in 2014. Liang was sentenced to five years’ probation and 800 hours of community service.