A day after the release of the video and dispatch audio from an officer involved shooting in Tulsa (OK) has brought more questions than answers.
Overall there has been social media outrage over Tulsa Police Officer Betty Shelby shooting an ‘unarmed’ black man after finding his car running in the middle of the roadway but today’s announcement by the Tulsa Police Department is a start to filling in the missing information and gaps in what is needed to properly assess the police shooting.
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The Tulsa World reported that a Tulsa Police official confirmed that officers found PCP in the vehicle used by Terence Crutcher the night he was fatally shot by police. One 911 caller claimed that she encountered Crutcher running from his car.
There was a guy running from it. He, like ‘somebody was going to blow up.’ I think he’s smoking something.
Shelby’s attorney, Scott Wood, claims she fired because Crutcher reached into the vehicle. Wood also stated that Shelby is a drug recognition expert and believed that Crutcher was under the influence of PCP.
According to Drugs.com, “PCP may cause acute anxiety and a feeling of impending doom; in others, paranoia and violent hostility, and in some, it may produce a psychoses indistinguishable from schizophrenia. Many believe PCP to be one of the most dangerous drugs of abuse.”
One thing is certain, the minutes leading up to Officer Shelby pointing her gun at Crutcher and ultimately shooting him are missing. Officers are seen in dashcam video responding ‘lights and siren’ to get to her location and a police helicopter also responds. There is not any video from the initial encounter with the officer and Crutcher and we can only assume that encounter was of the emergency type considering the rapid response by other officers.
We now know that PCP was found in the car. Crutcher told a bystander the car was going to blow up and Officer Shelby is a Drug Recognition Expert that understands the dangers of PCP.
The “hands up” narrative is also under scrutiny after the blog, Bearing Arms, did an analysis on the video.
The only thing we seem to know for certain, a day after the release of this video, is that there are more questions left to be answered.
Sadly, for many, minds are made up without all of the facts and information to make a sane decision on such a critical issue.
