Topic: Tulsa area Police Officer shoots suspect...who do you side with? (Read 983 times)

1) Very sure he was not told to "stop moving and reaching inside the vehicle". He was probably yelled different instructions by different people and was trying to just keep the cops from attacking him.
2) There are not "many cases of a police officer being shot by a drunk or drugged driver". There are something like a million cops in the U.S., so there are going to be some shot by a drunk, even going to be a few cops getting bitten by bats or stepping in potholes and twisting their ankles. Policing in the United States is a very safe job, about the same as truckdriving. A person who needs to shoot anybody who might possibly be or become a threat needs to be a soldier, where there are no cameras, rather than a cop. Then when he gets back he can become a cop.

Here is what most likely happened.

Lady cop with her gun out "Mr Black man get in your car"
Black man "Maam, my car broke down, I..."
Lady cop "GET IN THE CAR. GET IN THE CAR NOW."
Lady cop on radio "Code 20 Subject is not cooperating I need backup and a helicopter asap"
Black man "Maam, My car broke down. I was driving back from..."
Lady cop "GET IN YOUR CAR NOW. GET BACK IN YOUR CAR"
Lady cop on radio "Code 571 Situation is escalating, Send 2 helicopters and a tank".

To stop moving and reaching inside the vehicle. There were many cases of a police officer being shot by a drunk or drugged driver. There are youtube clips of such attacks.
I think your opinion might change if you saw some of them.
When you stop a vehicle you can't see inside. The driver could as well have a body stashed in the trunk or be driving a stolen car. He could be an escaped convict, a terrorist, you don't know.

Which instruction did he not follow?

Seems like this guy was under the influence of drugs. He either was unable to comprehend the instructions, or he didn't wanted to follow them. Too bad. When you are in an inebriated condition, then you should stay at home.

Agreed that police should take some risk, considering they are covered with armor, as much as they want to wear. But in this case that is not the issue. The guy and the lady cop had been interacting for some time before other police arrived. At no time when she was alone with him did she feel the need to shoot him. So the most threatening activity he engaged in was probably caught on video.


When a person is outside their vehicle the police always say "get back in your vehicle". That is almost certainly what he was told, even though the car was in the middle of the road, because the police were not responding rationally. The guy knew from the beginning, as soon as the lady cop arrived, that he was going to at least get a beating and possibly get shot, no matter what he did. He could have just laid down on the ground with his hands in the air, that would have led to a rough arrest, a beating and resisting arrest charges. He could have followed the various contradictory commands the officers yelled at him, and that too would usually result in a beating, resisting arrest charges etc. You can look at the lady cop and kind of see that she wants to be "the good guy" even if it means creating "the bad guy", and the male cops at the scene, down to the last one, were disgusting.


Most people do not become cops "to confront bad guys" or "to protect and serve" or whatever. They become cops because the pay is often much more than they could earn in any other job that is available to them, they get a feeling of power and "being respected" that they typically did not get before they were cops, etc.

There is also a lot of pressure in society for men to pretend they are women and women to pretend they are men. A small lady like that is not going to have much success in a physical altercation with most 'criminals', so she pretty much has to lean on her gun unless she wants to get black and blue regularly. A male cop, with a vest, in that situation, if he thought the guy was dangerous, would not need to draw his gun so early.  


He was following orders exactly. He had his hands up and was going to his car, as he probably had been instructed.

A person should not strictly follow the instructions of anybody, including cops, unless their instructions etc are proper. Cops are no different than anybody else, except that they are a little more dangerous than most people, and a little less civilized.

Cops are famous for abusing people who "follow their instructions". You can find plenty of videos of cops pounding somebody who is defenseless and not resisting, while the cops shout "stop resisting". Much more common when there is no video present.

As a general rule a person should cooperate with anybody who is doing their job, whether bank teller, cop, grocery cashier etc. But amongst all occupations the one you should be most careful about obeying are cops. They abuse that 'tendency to cooperate' more than any other group.

You can see on the video the guy is trying to cooperate but there is literally nothing he can do, no cooperation he can offer, that can end well. So should he have tried harder to cooperate? What should he have done? There have been several cases recently of black people face down on the pavement being shot in the back by police. Absurdly the police almost always claim in those situations that the person, face down on the ground, looked like they were reaching for a gun. Usually it is a black person but here is an example of a white person getting "helped" by cops https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfsXPtXuHOg Lady cop in this case too. She zaps the living fuck out of him with a taser then shoots him.


What did the guy do, aside from being black, that gave the officer a justification to shoot?

His car may have broken down where there wasn't much shoulder to pull over. He is old enough that he could have been stymied by the transmission, i.e., not easy to push the car without figuring out various safety mechanisms that did not exist when he was stealing cars as a kid.

Whether he was on drugs are not, the police were going to find drugs in his car. Whether the drugs were his or not is for lawyers to sort out.

And as for "endangers other drivers" etc, good grief. If your car breaks down or you fall on the sidewalk and block pedestrians, putting them in danger, should others shoot you? How about of you drive with bad tires, running the risk of a blowout that could endanger others? Should they shoot you then?

You right, next time I see someone pulled over the side of the road I'm gonna plow that fucker down .. just in case..

I don't think the cops should be allowed to kill someone that isn't directly threatening their lives. Otherwise its murder like it would be for you or me. Cops are not above us they are the same when it comes to the law.

Now consider this please:
He stops in the middle of a road and endangers other drivers and himself.
He doesn't respond to questions and commands, looks like on drugs.
If he wanted to go for his meds there were many ways of showing it.

I think the officer had the right to shoot, but he could at make the shot non-lethal. He could aim at a leg or a shoulder.

Erm, wouldn't most people? They're not bulletproof and they're an obvious target for the ire of psychos and scumbags. Being a piggy would not give you the most balanced outlook on humanity.

Good to talk when you are not every day PD sight of the offender. It seems to me that in order to survive all criminals or suspects in a crime should strictly follow the instructions of cops, and not to provoke them.

Cops should have waited for him to pull out a weapon before killing the guy. For all they know he could have had a medical condition and he was going for his meds.

It seems like cops are too scared and just shoot "just in case" .. well I think the cop in this video who shot him should be fired. If your too scared to confront bad guys then why would you be a cop? duh.

First we can't hear the video sound. This big guy was threatening the police. Also not visible in the window in the car. I know that in such cases as the video is usually the suspect lay on the pavement. Why he went to the window of the car? There are so many questions.

And what responsibility does the suspect have to listen and follow the police officers orders, regardless of whether he is doing something wrong or not?

The police officer said in an interview "his actions determined my actions."

That said, I'm a very big believer that since police officers have greater freedom of action (than the rest of us) they must be held to a higher level of responsibility and accountability (than the rest of us). Their decision making needs to be evaluated at a higher level, where there is a lower margin or acceptance for making mistakes. That's the only way to preserve their position of authority. If they are allowed to make mistakes (where the consequences are so great...death) but are tried based on the same standards as the rest of us it (indirectly) supports a police culture of shoot-first when a threat is perceived.

Police officers need to be willing to get shot at first before they decide to respond with lethal force. This is probably the bottom line for me, this is the test that needs to be applied in determining who's right vs. wrong...for me.

To deescalate who? Watch the videos. Who needs deescalating?

The police officer cant be blamed on the incident but my question is did she the weapon or because the suspect was reaching for something she thought it was a weapon?

It was done in the line of duty following the proper protocols as a police officer. In legal basis it will be counted as non violation of any laws and the cops will be freed from any case there may be. But social responsibility comes and the police officer is entitled as his conscience would dictate to respect the corpse of the victim and to do something for the family. This is the hardest part of all and that is the obligation towards the family you killed by accident.

I kind of lean suspect in the US due to the fact that unless someone has footage proving the story from a non-biased viewpoint the stories sometimes do not match the reality and the police report can be falsified.
So it depends well the court will decide this one.

Even with all the videos we need a passenger side camera view but regardless they had more than enough people to deescalate even if there was a weapon and or could have always checked the car first before walking him to it... or aim at the foot.

The window was up, he wasn't reaching inside.

Also you notice from the helicopter view there was a guardrail on the right of the car before where the car was stopped. Probably not a well maintained car that crapped out as he was driving and he tried to coast over to the other shoulder.

The lady has to be defensive. Normally cops will back a fellow cop no matter what. If a cop cuts a fetus out of a pregnant woman his fellow cops will usually all agree to say "witnesses saw a black man leaving the scene shortly before". Now though you have more video cameras on top of scrutiny about shooting black people so times are changing and officers try to be careful about picking their partners.

As for 'blame', really, a lot of cops were on the scene before the bullet was fired. They all saw a panicky little lady basically stalking a guy with his hands up, obviously eager to play her cop role. Any more seasoned person should have told her "relax, goi back to your policecar and smoke a joint, we'll take care of checking the guy for guns or drugs or whatever." Instead the cops all acted like a bunch of morons, one even saying "oh he looks like a bad dude".

A good outcome would be somebody says to the lady "you killed a guy for basically no reason, either admit the mistake or get toasted". If she wants to double down on "He shouldn't have been black" then somebody needs to straighten that out. But there should be no need. Somebody, a prosecutor or whoever, probably has the power to sort her out and if she agrees to then rig the case so that she does not get jail. But as it is, unless she admits that she was a little too quick to shoot, she is begging to be made an example. Worth noting that, honestly, black people in rural southern areas don't get jobs easily and a very high percentage have records. No doubt the guy has a history, but you can't just kill people because of what they might have done or might do, unless there are no cameras  

edit to add
Here are two articles, one saying the window was up, one saying it was down

"window was up, he wasn't reaching inside" http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/21/us/terence-crutcher-police-shooting-point-counterpoint/

"window was down, he might have been reaching inside" http://www.newson6.com/story/33150983/the-frontier-window-of-terence-crutchers-suv-was-down-source-says

I was trying to avoid providing too much "context" so as not to influence anyone that's new to the case...allowing them to read the news article, watch the videos, make up their own mind.

You clearly have a point of view on this, which is great and I'm glad you shared your context and rationale.

I want to directly respond to one of your context comments (quoted below):


Tonight on 60 Minutes (US weekly TV news show), the officer stated that she "saw him reach inside the vehicle." There wasn't mention of the window being up or any actual discrepancy in belief of whether the window was up or not. The reporter didn't mention it, the officer didn't mention it. The officer was adamant about what she believed she thought was happening.

I'll have to watch the video again to see if I can see the glare. In the video it doesn't appear that the suspect moves his hands inside the vehicle at all, the angle of his white short sleeve shirts indicate (to me) that his hands are still partially raised.

It is clear that the police officer is perfectly justified in shooting the suspect. But as always, the leftist media will go ballistic over this incident, and will pull out every dirty trick from their book to demonize the officer.

Here is the context that should be added though.

1) The person was a large black male.
2) The officer who shot him was a small female.
3) There is no evidence anywhere that he tried to do anything other than follow the directions of the officer.
4) The officer is obviously trying to "prove herself" as a police officer, which is understandable. Although the guy never made any threatening gestures, she keeps him at strict gunpoint as if he is a major threat. It's not a bad assumption, considering large male vs small female, but she overplayed it as you can see in the video.
5) The guys window was rolled up. The glass is visible, so he was not "reaching inside" as the police initially claimed.
6) She fired one shot, which is not consistent with her having perceived a threat. If she had seen a gun or other threat she would have unloaded. It looks more like she panicked.
7) There isn't really any question how a case like this ends in court. The police will "find evidence" to justify the shooting and loads of people will pile on about how good the police are and so on. All you have to do is look at the video, but in practical terms the police and courts are not likely to find guilty any white officer under those circumstances, but especially not a small white female officer.

All that said, the lady cop did not have any malicious intent. She did not wake up that morning and say "gotta kill a nigger today". A lot of people have erred on the side of caution in situations like that and anybody who does not understand the lady's mistake has never ventured far.

She shouldn't go to jail, but she should admit that it was a thoroughly bad shoot, apologize directly to the family and the city should pepper the family with money.