Man ignored officer’s commands, attorney says
TULSA, Okla. — An attorney for a white Oklahoma police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black man said the man ignored officers’ commands, kept touching his pocket and was reaching through a window of his SUV when he was killed.
Tulsa police video shows 40-year-old Terence Crutcher walking away from the officers and toward his SUV Friday with his hands in the air. He then approaches the driver’s side of his vehicle, where an officer shocks him with a stun gun and another fatally shoots him.
Officers were called to the scene to respond to a report of a stalled vehicle.
Police Chief Chuck Jordan said Monday, before the video and audio recordings were released, that Crutcher had no weapon on him or in his SUV when he was shot. It’s not clear from the footage what led Betty Shelby, the officer who fired the fatal shot, to draw her gun or what orders officers gave Crutcher.
Shelby’s attorney, Scott Wood, said that Crutcher was not following the officers’ commands and that Shelby was concerned because he kept reaching for his pocket as if he was carrying a weapon.
“He has his hands up and is facing the car and looks at Shelby, and his left hand goes through the car window, and that’s when she fired her shot,” Wood told the Tulsa World for a story published Tuesday.
Local and federal investigations are under way to determine whether criminal charges are warranted in the shooting or if Crutcher’s civil rights were violated.
Police helicopter footage was among several clips released that show the shooting. A man in the helicopter can be heard saying “time for a Taser” and then: “That looks like a bad dude, too. Probably on something.”
Tulsa Police Sgt. Dave Walker later said investigators recovered a vial of PCP in Crutcher’s vehicle.
Crutcher’s twin sister, Tiffany Crutcher, called for charges Monday.
“The big bad dude was my twin brother. That big bad dude was a father,” she said.