This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The white Tulsa, Okla., police officer captured on video fatally shooting an unarmed black man on a city street will face first-degree manslaughter charges, according to news reports.
District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler filed the charges against Officer Betty Shelby on Thursday, a full six days after multiple cameras showed her shooting 40-year-old Terence Crutcher as he stood beside his stalled sport-utility vehicle. Moments earlier, cameras had captured Crutcher walking away from Shelby with his hands in the air.
"In the matter of the death of Terence Crutcher, I determine that the filing of the felony crime of manslaughter in the first degree against the Tulsa police Officer Betty Shelby is warranted," Kunzweiler said.
Video shows Crutcher walking toward his vehicle with his hands above his head while several officers follow closely behind him with weapons raised. He lingers at his vehicle's driver's side window, his body facing the SUV, before slumping to the ground a second later.
"Shots fired!" a female voice can be heard yelling.
Tulsa police say Crutcher did not have a gun on him or in his vehicle.
After Crutcher is hit, footage shows his limp body lying on the roadway beside his vehicle. Officers appear to wait more than 2½ minutes before approaching Crutcher while he bleeds in the street.
The footage does not offer a clear view of when Shelby fired the single shot that killed Crutcher. Her attorney, Scott Wood, has said Crutcher was not following police commands and that Shelby opened fire when the man began to reach into his SUV window.
Wood told the Tulsa World that when his client arrived at the scene, several minutes before the camera footage begins, she found Crutcher's vehicle in the middle of the road with the engine on and the doors open. Shelby thought Crutcher was behaving like someone under the possible influence of PCP, Wood told the World, noting that Crutcher ignored the officer's commands to stop reaching into his pockets.