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Tulsa police say man had no gun; video shows he had hands up

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TULSA WORLD VIA AP

Protesters pray over Tyler Johnson, son of Terence Crutcher, in front of the Tulsa County Courthouse today in Tulsa, Okla., during a protest of the Tulsa Police shooting of Terence Crutcher.

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TULSA POLICE DEPARTMENT VIA AP

In this image made from a Friday police video, Terence Crutcher, top, is pursued by police officers as he walk to an SUV in Tulsa, Okla. Crutcher was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead after he was shot by the officer around 8 p.m., Friday, police said.

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TULSA POLICE DEPARTMENT VIA AP

In this image made from a Friday police video, Terence Crutcher, center, is pursued by police officers as he walk to an SUV in Tulsa, Okla. Crutcher was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead after he was shot by the officer around 8 p.m., Friday, police said.

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ASSOCIATED PRESS

Attorney Damario Solomon-Simmons, left, comforted Tiffany Crutcher, twin sister of Terence Crutcher who was shot and killed by Tulsa Police Friday night. At right is Rev. Joey Crutcher, her and Terence’s father.

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ASSOCIATED PRESS

Police worked the scene of a shooting late Friday, in Tulsa, Okla. A Tulsa police officer shot and killed a black man who ignored repeated requests to put up his hands before reaching into an SUV that was stalled in the middle of a street, the police department said.

TULSA, Okla. » An unarmed black man killed by a white Oklahoma officer who was responding to a stalled vehicle can be seen in police video walking away from officers and toward his SUV with his hands up before he approaches the driver’s side door, where he drops to the ground after being shocked with a stun gun then fatally shot.

In Tulsa police helicopter footage that was among several clips released today showing the shooting of 40-year-old Terence Crutcher and its aftermath, a man in the helicopter that arrives above the scene as Crutcher walks to the vehicle can be heard saying “time for a Taser.” He then says: “That looks like a bad dude, too. Probably on something.”

Police Chief Chuck Jordan announced before the video and audio recordings’ release that Crutcher had no weapon on him or in his SUV when he was shot Friday. 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 might have given Crutcher. Local and federal investigations are underway to determine whether criminal charges are warranted in the shooting or if Crutcher’s civil rights were violated.

Crutcher’s twin sister, Tiffany Crutcher, called for charges today.

“The big bad dude was my twin brother. That big bad dude was a father,” she said. “That big bad dude was a son. That big bad dude was enrolled at Tulsa Community College, just wanting to make us proud. That big bad dude loved God. That big bad dude was at church singing with all of his flaws, every week. That big bad dude, that’s who he was.”

Police video shows Crutcher walking toward his SUV that is stopped in the middle of the road. His hands are up and a female officer is following him. As Crutcher approaches the driver’s side of the SUV, three male officers walk up and Crutcher appears to lower his hands and place them on the vehicle. The officers surround him, making it harder to see his actions from the dashboard camera’s angle.

Crutcher can be seen dropping to the ground. Someone on the police radio says, “I think he may have just been tasered.” One of the officers near Crutcher backs up slightly.

Then almost immediately, someone can be heard yelling, “Shots fired!” Crutcher’s head then drops, leaving him completely lying out in the street.

After that, someone on the police radio can be heard saying, “Shots fired. We have one suspect down.”

Officer Tyler Turnbough, who’s also white, used a stun gun on Crutcher, police said.

The shooting comes just four months after former Tulsa County volunteer deputy Robert Bates was sentenced to four years in prison on a second-degree manslaughter conviction in the 2015 death of an unarmed black man. Shelby worked as a Tulsa County sheriff’s deputy for four years before joining the Tulsa Police Department in December 2011, officials said. She has been placed on paid leave.

The initial moments of Crutcher’s encounter with police are not shown in the footage. Shelby did not activate her patrol car’s dashcam, said police spokeswoman Jeanne MacKenzie, and the ground-level video released today came from the car of a second officer who arrived at the scene.

Initial police briefings indicated Crutcher was not obeying officers’ commands, but MacKenzie said today she didn’t know what Crutcher was doing that prompted police to shoot. Two 911 calls described an SUV that had been abandoned in the middle of the road. One unidentified caller said the driver was acting strangely, adding, “I think he’s smoking something.”

After the shooting, Crutcher could be seen lying on the side of the road, blood pooling around his body, for nearly two minutes before anyone checked on him. When asked why police did not provide immediate assistance once Crutcher was down, MacKenzie said, “I don’t know that we have protocol on how to render aid to people.”

The American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma, which also called for charges, said Crutcher was left to bleed while officers stood by. The group’s executive director, Ryan Kiesel, said Crutcher’s death shows “how little regard” Tulsa police have for the community’s minorities.

Dozens of protesters gathered outside the county courthouse this evening holding signs that read, “Justice 4 Crutch” and “Don’t Shoot.”

With relations between police and blacks in Tulsa already uneasy, the community needs to be the place where change happens, Tiffany Crutcher said.

“This is bigger than us right here. We’re going to stop it right here,” she said.

U.S. Attorney Danny C. Williams said the Department of Justice’s civil rights investigation into the shooting will be separate from a local one into whether criminal charges should be filed.

“The Justice Department is committed to investigating allegations of force by law enforcement officers and will devote whatever resources are necessary to ensure that all allegations of serious civil rights violations are fully and completely investigated,” he said.

Speaking today in Tulsa, civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump said Crutcher committed no crime and gave officers no reason to shoot him.

“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, who is representing Crutcher’s family just as he did relatives of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed, black Florida teenager who was fatally shot by a neighborhood watch volunteer in 2012.

He said Tulsa police drew their own conclusions about Crutcher.

“So I guess it’s a crime now to be a big black man,” Crump said. “My God, help us.”

9 responses to “Tulsa police say man had no gun; video shows he had hands up”

  1. noheawilli says:

    Last night a white man was shot by an officer. Where’s the headline?

    • torxman says:

      He was shot by a white officer, so what’s your point?

    • nodaddynotthebelt says:

      If you at speaking about the white male shot in Fresno, California, that situation was quite different in terms of a racIal aspect. The shooting victim was not compliant with the officers’ reasonable demands. He refused to show his right hand while standing and in fact appeared to behinding something behind his back. Further, he made comments stating that he hated his life. In this situation where a suspect is not showing his hand and making a troubling statement the officers had to mKe a decision that no officer would want to make. If you were to look at a footage from the officer’s body camera you would see that he was hiding something and it could have been a gun. Eventually it was found that it was not a gun after he fell after being shot. But to say that there was no outrage because the man was white seems disingenuous. Now, if the officers were behaving outside of protocol then yes there should be an outcry. But do we have an outcry when a victim does not comply to reasonable requests by officers?

      • BlueEyedWhiteDevil says:

        totally agree with the Fresno case. In this instance, the angle is not good, but it looks as though he put his hands into the driver’s side window. That would invite a deadly response.

    • allie says:

      She was a poorly trained officer and there are too many out there like this. No knowing yet whether race played a role in this tragedy.

    • hywnsytl says:

      Yes where is the headline? Why are Police allowed to shoot so many people of all colors? If you are afraid of your life doing the job, QUIT. There is no justification for this shooting, Man had his hands up above his head and was flanked by 3 police officers with weapons drawn.

  2. saywhatyouthink says:

    What is wrong with these cops? Not every black man is a gangbanger out to kill them but they seem to assume the worse whenever they deal with any black man.
    It’s just not right. With that many cops present and no weapon seen, there’s no way fear for her own safety can be used as justification for employing deadly force? She’s going to jail for the rest of her sorry life.

    • noheawilli says:

      Here is my point, because of the media ppl believe it’s always or at least a majority of the time that it’s a black man getting shot but the truth is different, and ppl do not know the truth.

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