NAACP LDF calls for law enforcement conference to drop cop who killed unarmed Terence Crutcher
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund sent a letter Friday to the Southeastern Homicide Investigators Association expressing concerns about Rogers County Sheriff's Deputy Betty Shelby speaking on the topic "Surviving the Aftermath of a Critical Incident," The AP writes.
The NAACP Legal Defense Fund is calling for a police group to cancel a speech by Betty Shelby, the white Oklahoma police officer who was acquitted in the shooting death of Terence Crutcher, an unarmed Black man, reports The Associated Press.
Shelby, who is white, was tried and acquitted of first-degree manslaughter in Tulsa County Court in 2017. Despite being acquitted in the 2016 shooting, the jury questioned her “judgment as a law enforcement officer,” The AP notes. Shelby resigned after the Tulsa Police Department pulled her from the streets and reassigned her to a desk job.
6. Yesterday we sent @sehiabatonrouge a letter demanding they rescind Deputy Shelby's speaker invite. Police officers who fatally shoot unarmed people must not have a platform to discuss how they survived the consequences of their actions.
Read our letter: https://t.co/96yAdJ08qD pic.twitter.com/IUf2boyDHZ— Legal Defense Fund (@NAACP_LDF) November 10, 2018
Since then, she has gone on to start teaching a course on how to “survive such events” — effectively painting herself out to be the victim. She told Tulsa ABC affiliate KUTL that her course helps to teach officers on how to withstand what she calls the “Ferguson Effect” which she described as “when a police officer is victimized by anti-police groups and tried in the court of public opinion.”
In case you forgot, Shelby killed Crutcher, who had his hands up when she shot him. She claimed Crutcher was reaching into his SUV despite video show he was not.
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Shelby, who now works in the neighboring Rogers County Sheriff’s Department, is set this week to bring her state-approved training course, “Surviving the Aftermath of a Critical Incident,” to the Southeastern Homicide Investigators Association in Baton Rouge.
The Legal Defense Fund sent a letter Friday to the association expressing concerns about Shelby speaking at the event.
“To share with a national audience of law enforcement personnel how Deputy Shelby ‘survived’ the consequences of a homicide that she committed is inconsistent with the purported work of SEHIA members pursuing justice for homicide victims and their families,” the letter said. “Deputy Shelby is not a victim of Mr. Crutcher’s homicide. The late Mr. Crutcher and his survivors are the victims.
“Deputy Shelby’s subsequent acquittal on manslaughter charges is not an exoneration of her decision to kill an unarmed man that day, as the comments of the jurors following her trial make clear,” the letter continued.
Association President Jen Spears of the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office in Florida declined comment on the letter. Rogers County Sheriff Scott Walton supports Shelby, saying she offers “valuable perspective.”
