Friday 26 / April / 2024
Tulsa, Oklahoma: A white Tulsa, Oklahoma police officer was booked on a first-degree manslaughter charge and released on $50,000 bond on Friday, online jail records showed, after shooting dead an unarmed black man whose car had broken down and blocked a road.
Officer Betty Shelby, 42, was charged on Thursday for killing Terence Crutcher, 40, and faces at least four years in prison if she is convicted in the case that has stoked simmering anger among those who see racial bias in US policing.
Crutcher died of a penetrating gunshot wound to the chest, Oklahoma medical examiners said, adding that a toxicology report has not yet been completed.
Shelby is scheduled for an initial court appearance on September 30. Her attorney told local media she is receiving death threats.
In two videos provided by Tulsa police on Monday, Crutcher can be seen with his hands in the air shortly before he was shot last Friday.
According to an arrest affidavit, Shelby escalated the situation and overreacted. She was responding to a separate call for a domestic disturbance when she came upon Crutcher in the road.
Shelby told investigators Crutcher did not comply with her instructions and "that she was in fear for her life and thought Crutcher was going to kill her," according to the arrest affidavit.
According to Tulsa police, Crutcher was unarmed and there was no weapon in the vehicle. In a bid for transparency, they released the videos, one of which was taken from a police helicopter and the other from a dashboard camera in a patrol car.
"She became emotionally involved to the point that she overreacted," the affidavit said.
In Kansas City, Missouri, a police officer was being investigated for potential misconduct after a message appeared on his Facebook page praising Shelby for her "good shot," the department said on Twitter, without identifying the officer.
