Family, neighbors: Tulsa man was changing his life
TULSA, Okla. — An unarmed black man shot dead in the middle of a street by a white Oklahoma police officer had run-ins with the law dating to his teenage years and had recently served four years in prison.
But those closest to Terence Crutcher described him as a church-going father who was beginning to turn his life around. After marking his 40th birthday with his twin sister last month, Crutcher sent her a text that read, “I’m gonna show you, I’m gonna make you all proud.”
Crutcher was due to start a music appreciation class at a local community college Friday, the day he was fatally shot by Tulsa police Officer Betty Shelby after she responded to a report of a vehicle abandoned in the road.
The shooting was captured by a police helicopter and a cruiser dashcam, though it’s not clear from that footage what led Shelby to draw her gun or what orders officers gave Crutcher. An attorney for Crutcher’s family said Crutcher committed no crime and gave officers no reason to shoot.
Shelby was put on paid administrative leave while local and federal officials investigate the shooting.
Crutcher’s criminal history includes a 1995 arrest in Osage County in which officers reported that they saw him fire his weapon out a vehicle window. Records obtained Tuesday show that when Crutcher was ordered to exit the vehicle for a pat-down, he began making a movement to his right ankle before an officer managed to get control of Crutcher.
A .25-caliber pistol was found in his right sock, the arresting officer wrote in an affidavit.
Crutcher entered a nocontest plea to charges of carrying a weapon and resisting an officer, and he received suspended sentences, court records show.
Oklahoma prison officials confirmed Tuesday that Crutcher also served four years in prison from 2007 to 2011 on a Tulsa County drug trafficking conviction.
Court records show officers used force against Crutcher on at least four separate occasions, including a 2012 arrest on public intoxication and obstruction complaints.
In that case, an officer used a stun gun on Crutcher twice while he was face down on the ground because the officer said Crutcher didn’t comply with orders to show his hands, according to a police affidavit. Crutcher’s father showed up while he was being arrested and told the officers that his son had “an ongoing problem” with the drug PCP, the affidavit states.
“Nobody claimed that he was a perfect individual. Who is perfect? But that night he was not a criminal,” said Melvin Hall, an attorney for Crutcher’s family, regarding Crutcher’s criminal record. “He did not have any warrants. He had not done anything wrong. He had a malfunctioning vehicle, and he should have been treated accordingly.”
Neighbors remembered Crutcher as being friendly and generous. They said he lived with four children, cooked barbecue meals that he’d share with neighbors and belted out hymns in his driveway — finetuning the songs before performing them at church.
The Rev. Willie Lauderdale, pastor at the Gethsemane Baptist Church near Crutcher’s home, said Crutcher wasn’t a member of the congregation but would come sing some Sundays.
“I called him ‘Crutch,’ ” Lauderdale said.
Camellia Bryant, who lives across the street from Crutcher’s modest singlestory house, said her children and Crutcher’s had routine sleepovers. She said he was soft-spoken but well-known throughout the neighborhood.
Another neighbor, Melrita Gilliam, said shewould see Crutcher drink beer or tequila occasionally “but he always kept it at home” and didn’t drive after drinking.
“I never seen him raging or nothing out there,” she said.