Officer acquitted in black man’s death

TULSA — A white Oklahoma police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black man last year was acquitted Wednesday of first-degree manslaughter.

Jurors deliberated for nine hours before acquitting Tulsa officer Betty Jo Shelby in the Sept. 16 shooting of 40-year-old Terence Crutcher. Shelby said she fired her weapon out of fear because she said Crutcher didn’t obey her commands to lie on the ground and appeared to reach inside his SUV for what she thought was a gun. Crutcher was unarmed.

Prosecutors told jurors that Shelby overreacted. They noted Crutcher had his hands in their air and wasn’t combative — part of which was confirmed by police video taken from a dashboard camera and helicopter that showed Crutcher walking away from Shelby, hands held above his head.

Shelby’s attorneys argued that in the two minutes before cameras began recording the encounter, Shelby repeatedly ordered Crutcher to stop walking away from her and get on the ground. Shelby also said she feared Crutcher was under the influence of PCP, a hallucinogenic known as angel dust that makes users erratic, unpredictable and combative.

An autopsy showed PCP was in Crutcher’s system, and police said they found a vial of it in his SUV.