Posted on 09/20/2016 9:28:48 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
It’s not clear what happened in the last few fateful moments but some facts are undisputed. Crutcher was unarmed, Tulsa’s police chief admitted yesterday, and had no weapon in his car. He had his hands up as he walked slowly away from the police and towards his SUV with an officer, Betty Shelby, trailing behind him. As he reached the driver-side door, Shelby and another officer stopped a few feet behind the SUV and trained their pistols on him. They were joined by two more cops. Then things took a turn: At some point in the next few moments, as Crutcher stood beside the door, the second officer tasered him and then Shelby fired one shot at him, killing him.
Why was Crutcher’s SUV in the middle of the road? The Times says Shelby responded to the scene after “after the police received reports of an abandoned vehicle blocking a road”:
In an interview, Officer Shelby’s lawyer, Scott Wood, said the officer had thought that Mr. Crutcher had a weapon. Mr. Wood said Mr. Crutcher had acted erratically, refused to comply with several orders, tried to put his hand in his pocket and reached inside his car window before he was shot.
Chief Jordan said Officer Shelby had encountered Mr. Crutcher and his vehicle while en route to another call and requested backup because she was “not having cooperation” from him. Officer Turnbough and his partner responded to Officer Shelby’s request for backup. It was the dashboard camera in their patrol car that recorded the shooting.
There are two recordings, one from a helicopter plus the dashboard cam video, both of which are featured in the clip below. Neither one is close enough, though, to give you a good idea of exactly what’s going on once Crutcher gets to the SUV, and the dashboard angle is obstructed by the group of cops gathered at the back of the vehicle. Did Crutcher reach through the window into the car — a police spokesman says he did — and did officers on the scene warn him specifically not to do that? If he’d been uncooperative to that point and “erratic,” the police may have thought he was on something (one of the cops in the chopper speculates about that during the clip) and worried that he was going for a gun. That would have been nuts with four cops ready to fire at him just feet away, but “erratic” people can do nutty things.
Even so, Crutcher makes no sudden moves in the clip. His hands, as noted, are in the air. The cops had a nonlethal means of subduing him available, the taser, and they put it to use, raising the question of why Shelby felt obliged to shoot. Did the taser not bring him down? Even if it didn’t, with no hard evidence that Crutcher was armed, was Shelby obliged to at least catch a glimpse of a weapon before deciding to kill him, just in case?
The audio of what the cops said to Crutcher and what he said back may end up being more valuable than the video at trial, assuming that that audio exists. The DOJ has already opened an investigation into the shooting. Crutcher is survived by four kids.
The presence of 4 officers and a helicopter means there has to be more to this story...
Women cops far more likely to shoot because being weaker and smaller, more situations can be claimed “they fear for their lives”.
Not saying the cops are blameless here, but ....why would you ever disobey a cops order when they have guns trained on you? Not smart.
Sorry, after the behavior of the BLM types I have better things to do than scrutinize crappy video trying to determine if the police acted appropriately. Those days are gone. I don’t care.
And once again...
If he had done what the officers had told him to do he would be alive.
Backing up to your vehicle, and then reaching into it when they are ordering you to surrender is not behaviour that will make them love you more.
The video does raise questions. Will be interesting to see the body cameras. If erased, that raises big red flags. Very suspicious overall.
Some say drugs, others....aliens. ;^)
If she committed murder, then charge her with murder. If the taser cop committed assault with the taster, then charge him with assault.
At such time as charges are filed, I will consider evidence presented.
Until such time, I don’t care at all.
No, I am not going to be whipped into a frenzy, because it’s real damn easy to survive an encounter with police.
Trouble is, sometimes you have 4 different cops shouting contradictory demands at the same time. Who do you obey, if you can't obey all of them simultaneously?
Yeah ... lots of questions. First one that came to my mind was why was Crutcher going back to his vehicle? Was he asked to? Or was he being belligerent and doing that against orders?
Let the facts be revealed
From the video I saw, the guy appeared to be standing and reaching into the vehicle.... there was chopper video that seemed to show that was the circumstance.
We have a woman cop in Tacoma, WA who was completely white-washed of a bad shoot by the cronies downtown. This place is so crooked, I want nothing to do with anyone in any position of “authority.”
The presence of 4 officers and a helicopter means there has to be more to this story...
...
Yep. The crooked media’s narrative is that he had his hands up and he was unarmed. I doubt the police knew he was unarmed, and it’s questionable as to whether his right hand was up when he was shot.
The judicial standard is the totality of the circumstances must be considered, which we simply don’t know. I hope people don’t fall for the media’s narrative.
We have to separate the good cops from those who are just waiting for an excuse to shoot somebody.A murderer is still a murderer,doesn’t matter if he’s a BLM or wears a Blue uniform.
3 police cars and a helicopter.
Suspect casually (though hands up) wanders away from officer pointing a gun at him (presumably screaming “don’t move, get down”), and over to his vehicle window.
Unclear exactly what happened in the end, but suspect clearly acted to escalate tensions to the point of a furtive movement validating a shooting. May have been a bad shoot, arguably explained by the taser shot triggering the gunshot (if multiple cops are pointing guns at a suspect, and one shoots, understandable if the others shoot too).
Based on this little, looks like another argument against “non-lethal” weapons. Initiating “non-lethal” force in the presence of hair-trigger lethal force (chambered, sights on target, finger on trigger) may prompt the latter.
Theres a well known vid out on youtube of a woman cop firing at a non struggling handcuffed guy on the ground. Others are out there too.
Must be GREAT to be Allahpundit, knowing how to deal with life or death situations and all circumstances.
Why did he ever get into scribbling opinions for a living? He should have been in charge of training police nation wide.
Act hinky.
Get treated hinky
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