The police officer who fatally shot a 40-year-old black man in Oklahoma Friday night has been charged with first-degree manslaughter, according to a statement by the Tulsa County prosecutor Thursday afternoon.
Tulsa Police Officer Betty Shelby is being investigated by local and federal authorities for her role in the death of Terence Crutcher, after his car was discovered abandoned.
Emergency dispatchers on Friday received a call about an abandoned sport utility vehicle in the middle of a secluded road. The driver’s door was open and the engine was running. The caller reported the driver was running from the car, yelling it was “going to blow.”
Shelby and another officer had been en route to another call when they came across the SUV, but stopped to see why his vehicle was stopped in the middle of the street and blocking traffic on either side.
Shelby’s attorney has said Crutcher ignored more than two dozen commands and reached inside his car’s open window, which she perceived as a threat and prompted her to shoot him. The other officer had tazed him instead.
But Crutcher’s family’s attorneys said the front window was not open and the blood spattered on it from on the outside was evidence it had been closed at the time.
