Tulsa police officer Betty Shelby (Photo: Tulsa PD).
The white Tulsa police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black man was charged with manslaughter on Thursday and a warrant has been issued for her arrest, Tulsa County District Attorney Stephen Kunzweiler said.
Officer Betty Shelby was charged with first-degree manslaughter for the death of Terence Crutcher, 40. The incident, captured on widely broadcast police videos, is one in a series that has raised questions of racial bias in U.S. policing.
“Although she is charged, she is presumed innocent until a judge or jury determines otherwise,” Kunzweiler said. “I don’t know why things happen in this world the way they do.”
Manslaughter? Really? How about 1st degree murder? “I don’t know why things happen in this world the way they do.” Oh for fuck’s sake! What kind of grade A idiot says something like that? A man was murdered for no reason at all by yet another cop out of control, and with a head stuffed full of stereotypical bigotry. We aren’t talking about some great mystery here, or an unexplained phenomenon. This is an all too regular occurrence, a cop murdering a person of colour. Depressingly fucking normal and typical. Don’t even start with such utter isht, making this out to be something remarkable. The only remarkable thing about this case is that it’s not in the least remarkable.
A lawyer for Shelby has said she acted because she feared for her life, believing Crutcher was reaching into his vehicle for a weapon during the encounter, which took place last Friday.
Yet another cop pleading scaredy-pants. Fuck, fuck, fuck, I’m sick of this. If you are so scared, you need to be stripped of your weapons and ersatz authority, stat. Find another job. Shelby’s partner had his taser out and armed. And her excuse for gunning Mr. Crutcher down? “I was scared.” This disgusting excuse must not be accepted, in any way whatsoever. Cops have all manner of weaponry besides their damn gun. How about they use it, instead of us getting to hear about yet another person of colour being murdered by cops? Instead of hearing about yet another family devastated by trauma and grief?
This constant narrative of cops having such an incredibly dangerous job has to stop. Policing doesn’t even make the top 10 in a list of most dangerous jobs. Lumberjack, deep sea fisherman, bush pilot, miner, personal transport driver, sanitation worker, search and rescue, welder and metal worker, mechanic, electrician, roofer, and firefighter are all dangerous jobs, and all of them are more dangerous than being a cop. That’s not to say that there’s no danger or risk in policing, of course there is, however, it’s not up to what is always claimed, either. This narrative of constant, extreme danger is mostly swallowed whole by cops themselves, and it whips them up into a froth of fear and deep paranoia, which amplifies implicit bigotry, and you get “scared, so I gunned them down.”
Tulsa police have said 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.
The U.S. Justice Department has launched a separate investigation to see if the officers on the scene violated Crutcher’s civil rights.
:Chokes: Violated Mr. Crutcher’s civil rights? Is not being murdered in cold blood a violation of his rights? You have to check around to see if he was violated? Christ. This day, I seriously hate this damned country. (Yes, I know this can be used for additional charges. That does not take the inanity of it away.)
Via Raw Story.
Cops have all manner of weaponry besides their damn gun. How about they use it
For one thing, they had a helicopter and cars. Standard operating procedure needs to be “retreat and contain” not “command and conquer”
The problem is that police departments hire authoritarian assholes. Nobody but an authoritarian asshole is going to want to strut around in a uniform with a gun and an equipment belt and sunglasses and a siren. The people they hire are the exact opposite of the people they should be hiring.
How about: Denied Mr Crutcher his human rights. Deployed death squads on the streets.
Ice Swimmer:
Yes, that’s accurate.
“I don’t know why things happen in this world the way they do.”
I take that as a semi-obscured reference to god’s will. Coming from a district attorney that’s a scary thing to hear.
I bet this is gonna be one of those cases where critical bits of evidence go missing at the critical moment, or data gets deleted and backup systems weren’t in place. You know, that kind of thing.
Marcus:
Yes, it is, because it’s already a statement that it’s going to blown off and hand-waved away, “Oh it was one of those moments, a moment followed immediately by deep regret, but a moment that could not be helped, and could not be taken back.” Oh yeah, dead guy, these things are a mystery!”
You know everything is rotten to the core when that’s a normal expectation.
You know, German police just released their 2015 data of fatal shootings.
In all on 2015, in all of Germany, police shot 10 people dead.
TEN
And that’s probably still 9 too many.
And the report says that usually police were able to deescalate the situation. And that’s talking about situations where there really actually was a godsdamn weapon.
My own idiot cousin recently tried this by walking into a Casino with a weapon strapped into a holster (though it was an air pistol, but these things are hard to tell apart from deadly ones) and when the Police showed up he drew and pointed it at the officer. And the officer was still able to deescalate and defuse the situation and he walked out there alive.
Frankly, I don’t understand why, in this situation of a person standing next to a stalled car, any of the cops felt a need to have any weaponry drawn. Over here in the land of the gunless, if it happened on a normal road the cops would probably drive straight past, or on a motorway they’d maybe stop to make sure the driver was able to contact a breakdown-recovery service.
Sorry, I do understand why they felt that need: he was black. What I don’t understand is a culture wherein even liberal commenters seem to tacitly accept that some form of weaponry would be drawn in such a situation.
Daz @ 9:
I don’t understand it, and I live here. A narrative of fear and hate has taken over uStates, most of the recent wave started with 9/11, I suppose. It’s a mark of just how juvenile colonial America is, unable to cope with one external act of terrorism. Oh yes, it was a big one, but other countries around the world have suffered equally large strikes, and usually, more than one. There’s been close to two decades of bristling, posturing, and shit flinging.
Now, there’s Trump, making America grand for racists again. People in this country are already walking around with a metric fucktonne of implicit bigotry in their heads, and most of them would swear up and down they aren’t racist, they didn’t mean anything by nigger or black bitch, by gosh, they love black people, really. They might even have a black friend who can use the lav. When it comes to people with weapons (and there’s another major problem) and badges, all that shit becomes a fear driven excuse to murder at will.
That’s about the most sense I can make of it.
Hello, cops: if people on the street scare you enough that you feel you have to kill them, don’t be a cop.