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.
Doesn’t make sense for him to be heading back to his vehicle instead of getting on the ground unless he was ignoring police pointing weapons at him.
You make a very good point. I don't remember where I read it, but a couple of years ago a white guy was stopped by cops after leaving a store (a Walmart?). Someone had reported that the guy was carrying a gun.
Different cops shouted different commands to the man. He followed one command, which meant he disobeyed another. And that got him shot. IIRC, he was killed.
Don’t assume the man was disobeying the cops. Lots of videos on You Tube of people doing what a cop ordered them to do and then getting shot becuase they did it.
>The video does raise questions
Yeah, like why did the perp retreat to his vehicle while officers of the law had weapons trained on him and telling him not to?
I’m going with suicide by cop.
The fact that there wasn’t a weapon in the car doesn’t affect the fact that he was acting like there was. We may not have seen the final furtive movement (which may have been triggered by the taser firing), but his behavior up to that point raises serious suspicions of intent & ability.
He had the ability to get a gun if there was one (no indication of whether there was or wasn’t) by just reaching in the car,
he had the opportunity to get a gun (...) within arm’s reach, and
he was exuded jeopardy by confident action while under lethal threat.
May have been a bad shoot, strictly speaking, but he lured the police into it.
“Women cops far more likely to shoot because being weaker and smaller, more situations can be claimed “they fear for their lives”.”
And it would undermine equal opportunity, affirmative action, etc. if male cops do things a female cop couldn’t do, like physically subduing someone uncooperative, so they have to be more prone to shoot too.
Whatever the real facts are is not important, the BLM narrative template is now the basis for every police shooting...
cops murdered him because he was black...
there is no other explanation...
facts be dammed...
“Who do you obey, if you can’t obey all of them simultaneously? “
I’m pretty sure turning around and walking away is the wrong answer.
Do we have any stats to back that up—or is that just supposition on your part?
Exactly. Was she supposed to wait and see what surprise he was going to pull out of his car? Was she supposed to assume it was a thank you card he was reaching for and not a weapon?
Once again, if he had followed commands, he’d be alive. Is there some law I missed stating that blacks don’t have to comply with police commands.
Was the vehicle disabled as first reported or not, that seems to be an essential question.
What? Innocent until proven guilty?
What planet are you on? ;-)
Agree. Pshaw!
Yup. Even better, don’t put yourself in a position where cops are pointing guns at you!
Although to be fair, I found myself there once. Going on a late night walk and apparently I matched the description of a perp who was in the neighborhood. Got surrounded by multiple officers with guns drawn at the same time. Scared the heck out of me. But I simply complied with all orders, presented my identification very slowly when asked, and made sure to keep my hands in plain view. Also made clear that while I had a CCW permit, I was not carrying and offered to let them search me.
When they realized I wasn’t the perp, they gave my identification back and offered me their names and badge numbers in case I wanted to file a complaint. I declined. They were just doing their jobs. PS The perp was a serial rapist and they did get him.
I don’t know!
I think I am on Planet Floridia!
I’m tryin’a think of the last time I di’n’ do nuffin’ and had multiple cops with weapons drawn and a helicopter on me.
Damn helicopters ain’t got nuthin’ better to do than fly around harassing innocent people!?
Madness.
Uh, no... he did not have his hands up. He had HAD his hands up, while he walked to his SUV. Then he reached into the SUV. After a few weeks of rioting, we’ll find out what the police say happened.
In dealing with any cop when on.is in a law enforcement situation as the enforceee is to keep it from getting to where the cop feels impelled to draw a gun. Otherwise, one is a finger twitch away from being dead or permanently maimed. IMHO that’s probably why so many M&P weapons have two stage triggers.
Look how liberal our culture has become:
If this happened in 1965 the people would have said “he got what he deserved when he did not obey the policemen.”
Today: “The dirty cops shot an innocent person for no reason other than it was an easy way to make an arrest...dead or alive......worse yet the victim was “pure as the driven snow” and had just left Sunday School and was going to pick his sick mother up and take her to the doctor.”
Up until the mid 60’s the cops would shout “stop, or I will shoot” and if you did not stop...they would shoot and we had much better respect for law and order back then.....NOT TODAY!
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