Tulsa cop believed Terence Crutcher was high on PCP following drug recognition training
The Tulsa police officer who shot Terence Crutcher thought that he was on PCP and behaving erratically, according to the officer's attorney.
The Tulsa police officer who shot Terence Crutcher thought that he was on PCP and behaving erratically, according to the officer’s attorney.
Officer Betty Shelby had very recently undergone drug recognition training and believed that Crutcher was high before firing a single shot at Crutcher, according to attorney Scott Wood.
However, the attorney for the family, Damario Solomon-Simmons, insisted that Crutcher was not behaving erratically in the moments leading up to the fatal shooting. “The video shows that he was not belligerent,” said Solomon-Simmons. “The video shows what the video shows. That’s the great thing about video … it has no biases.”
Lack of compliance? No, Terence Crutcher’s crime was being black
“The video shows that officers were not in any immediate danger. The video shows that Terence did not make any sudden movements.”
Shelby was the first officer to arrive on the scene after Crutcher’s car broke down. According to Wood, Shelby radioed for backup after saying that Crutcher “never makes any response to her” and that Crutcher was not responding to her commands and “had his head tilted down but eyes on and fixated on” Shelby. However, video from a helicopter and another squad car showed that Crutcher was walking with his hands up toward his car when he was fatally shot.
