White Tulsa Cop Facing Suit for Shooting Black Man w/his Hands Up High: Reaching For an Imaginary Gun in the Sky

Seeing Things That Aren't There. Doc Blynd explains Racism is a "virus in the mind. A racist is a psychopath at war with his own being. [MORE] Suffering from the disease of constant comparison racists & their make believe beliefs [imagining themselves to be a part of a hierarchy wherein persons unable to produce color & lacking melanin are supreme; imagining themselves to be higher than what they imagine you to be] are in a state of non-reality, a play world. "A divided mind, with the an unconscious and a conscious one, can never apperceive things as they are. Truth is adulterated with falsehood in the same proportion to which one is unconscious." Anything such unconscious persons do or say will be stupid; know this while they are in your presence. 

From [HERE] Acquitted of manslaughter and back on desk duty, white Tulsa, Oklahoma Police Officer Betty Jo Shelby now faces a civil suit from the family of the unarmed man she killed last fall.

Terence Crutcher was empty-handed next to his vehicle when Shelby fired a single shot that killed him. Police cameras captured the final moments of the 40-year-old’s life from multiple angles, showing he had been walking slowly with his hands high above his head during the moments before the killing.

A jury decided last month that it could not convict Shelby of manslaughter in the case despite the video evidence. Defense attorneys persuaded jurors that Crutcher had made a move toward the open driver’s-side window of his stationary vehicle, and that Shelby’s decision in that moment to kill him was justified by what she perceived to be a reach for a gun that did not exist.

In a public letter after the trial, however, jurors indicated they believed Shelby’s actions were rash and Crutcher’s death was avoidable — just that none of what transpired satisfied the technicalities of the law they’d been asked to apply to the officer.

At 7:36 p.m. on September 16, 2016, police received a 9-1-1 call from a racist suspect about an abandoned vehicle in the middle of 36th Street North just west of Lewis Avenue. One racist suspect caller said: "Somebody left their vehicle running in the middle of the street with the doors wide open." "The doors are open. The vehicle is still running. It's an SUV. It's like in the middle of the street. It's blocking traffic." "There was a guy running from it, saying it was going to blow up. But I think he's smoking something. I got out and was like, 'Do you need help?'" "He was like, 'Come here, come here, I think it's going to blow up.'" The other racist suspect caller said: "There is a car that looks like somebody just jumped out of it and left it in the center of the road on 36th Street North and North Lewis Avenue." "It's dead in the middle of the street." "It's a Navigator. The driver-side door is open like somebody jumped out. It's on the yellow line, blocking traffic. Nobody in the car."

Police stated that Crutcher kept reaching into his pocket, refused to show his hands, walked towards his vehicle despite being told to stop, and then angled towards and reached into his vehicle. 

However, video and photographic evidence seems to contradict this, showing Crutcher's blood streaking the driver's side window from top to bottom after the shooting and indicating it was closed. Turnbough tased Crutcher, and Shelby shot him. Shortly before the shooting, officers in the helicopter conversed with each other: "This guy's still walking and isn't following commands." "It's time for a taser, I think." "I've got a feeling that's about to happen." "That looks like a bad dude, too, could be on something." Approximately two minutes after the shot, an officer checked Crutcher's pockets, and approximately 45 seconds later, someone crouched to offer aid. Police said Crutcher died in the hospital later that day. Tulsa police chief Chuck Jordan said no weapon was recovered from Crutcher's body or vehicle. [MORE]

The initial wrongful-death filing “contends Shelby had ‘ample opportunity to take ballistic cover’” with fellow officers close by, according to the Tulsa World.

But Crutcher’s surviving family members also appear ready to relitigate both the video footage and Shelby’s decision to shoot, this time in civil court.

Crutcher family lawyers argue the videos do not show “furtive, sudden, rapid, or aggressive movements” that would justify a “split-second decision” to fire — suggesting a civil jury will be asked to evaluate the same key frames of video and questions of officer training and department policy which were key to her criminal trial.

The civil suit also seems to reach further into the inner workings of Tulsa law enforcement institutions, laying blame on the very police policies and practices which helped keep Shelby out of prison.

“The dangers police officers generally face also do not provide a license to police officers to ‘shoot first and ask questions later,’ without properly evaluating the need for such force,” the family’s lawyers wrote.

Civil cases operate with a lower standard of proof. Wrongful-death cases generally require clear and convincing evidence to establish a claim while criminal cases require proof beyond a reasonable doubt. 

The white cop was reinstated to her police post shortly afterward and awarded more than $35,000 in back pay for time missed from work during the investigation.

Shelby’s killing of Crutcher was unusual not so much for what happened that Friday night but for how city officials responded. Police released footage to the public within days. The local prosecutor filed manslaughter charges within a week.

The two decisions likely helped maintain calm in Tulsa — a city with an ugly race relations history — in the days and weeks following the killing. Days after Crutcher’s death in Oklahoma, police in North Carolina killed Keith Lamont Scott and then refused to release videos they said justified their officers’ actions for several days as Charlotte descended into civil unrest.

Shelby’s case was also unusual for her decision to appear on 60 Minutes in the weeks ahead of her trial, a move both criticized as a skewing of public opinion and acknowledged as tactically savvy.

Crutcher’s family are not solely seeking money damages in the case. Their petition also asks the court to order changes to how police shootings are investigated in Oklahoma.