A jury empaneled in Oklahoma on Wednesday acquitted police officer Betty Shelby in the shooting death of Terence Crutcher, who was high on drugs and posed a life or death threat to Shelby and fellow officers, testimony revealed.
Shelby is white and Crutcher African American, a dynamic that caused the case to gain national media coverage.
According to Shelby and fellow officers, Crutcher refused to comply with Officer Shelby’s directives and was reaching inside his SUV at the time of the shooting. Shelby responded to the potential threat of a gun in the car and wounded Crutcher, who later died at the hospital, NBC reported.
A toxicology report revealed that Crutcher was on two hallucinogenic drugs, including PCP, at the time he was interacting with police.
During the trial, Shelby testified that police training videos taught officers to be on guard when suspects reach in their vehicle because they could be retrieving a gun, according to the Associated Press’ report on the incident.
Shelby said during her trail on Monday, “I feared for my life.”
“I did everything I could to stop this,” she said. “Crutcher’s death is his fault.”
“This is a triumph of justice, reason and common sense,” Jim Fotis, President of National Center for Police Defense said in a statement about the acquittal. “Officer Shelby should be reinstated to duty and should receive her pay that was withheld for the last eight months.”
Officer Tyler Turnbough, who witnessed the incident and shot his taser at Crutcher at the same time Shelby fired her gun, said his fellow officer followed proper protocol in light of the suspect’s state of mind. Other law enforcement officers, including the Sheriff of Rogers County, came to Shelby’s defense and supported her claim that she followed police procedure.
Benjamin Crump, an attorney for the Crutcher family, said this is just another name on a long list of black men being targeted by police, NBC reported.
“The list just goes on and on, of unarmed African American men being killed by white police officers, and they get away with it,” Crump said.
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