That “Bad Dude” Tulsa Police Gunned Down “Was a Father,” a “Son,” and a Student

Here’s what we know about the latest killing of an unarmed black man.

A still from video footage of Terence Crutcher's fatal encounter with police.Tulsa Police Department

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


On Monday, police in Tulsa, Oklahoma, released footage from their fatal shooting of an unarmed black man last Friday. Terence Crutcher, a 40-year-old father of four, was shot by a Tulsa cop responding to a call about a car that Crutcher had seemingly abandoned in the middle of a road. The man was unarmed and, in most of the released footage, has his hands raised over his head.

The shooting incident, which Police Chief Chuck Jordan called “very disturbing” at a press conference Monday, sparked a swift response on social media and from the department itself, which promptly released videos of the incident from several perspectives and called on the Department of Justice to investigate. Tulsa mayor Dewey Bartlett assured the public that the city’s own investigation would be transparent. The fourth shooting by city police this year, according to Tulsa World, even got the attention of Hillary Clinton, who during a radio interview on Tuesday called it “unbearable.” Such incidents “must be intolerable,” she added. Crutcher’s family are rallying for criminal charges against the officer who shot him. Here’s what we know so far:

What the footage shows: A video shot from a police helicopter shows Crutcher walking away from an officer—identified Monday as Betty Shelby—with his hands in the air. Crutcher approaches his car, and a second police officer arrives on the scene. Shelby and the second officer follow Crutcher with their weapons drawn and pointed at his back. They are joined by two more officers. When Crutcher reaches his car, he appears to lower his right arm. At that point, the camera angle changes and Crutcher is obscured by the vehicle. He falls to the ground shortly thereafter. At one point, as Crutcher walks toward his car, an officer, apparently in the helicopter, can he heard saying that Crutcher is “still walking” and not following commands.

One video shows that the officers waited more than two minutes before administering any first aid.

“Time for Taser, I think,” says another officer.

“I got a feeling that’s about to happen,” the first cop replies.

Crutcher, he adds, “looks like a bad dude, too. Could be on something.”

Seconds later, Crutcher collapses to the ground, his white t-shirt red with blood. “Shots fired!” a clearly distressed female cop yells over the radio.

A second officer had fired his Taser just before Crutcher was shot, according to the Tulsa chief.

Dash-cam footage from a cruiser also shows Crutcher walking toward his vehicle, hands up. When he nears the vehicle, four officers crowd around him. Seconds later he falls to the ground, but it’s unclear exactly what preceded that. The video shows that the officers waited more than two minutes before administering any first aid. One officer appears to check Crutcher’s pockets first.

Officer Shelby, 42, is a four-year veteran of the Tulsa police force and a field trainer. She had previously worked with the Tulsa Sheriff’s Office for four years. Shelby and the officer who fired his Taser have been placed on paid administrative leave. In addition to the videos, the Tulsa Police Department also released audio from 911 calls placed by observers.

The official account: According to Chief Jordan, Tulsa police received two calls around 7:30 Friday evening concerning a car sitting in the middle of the road with its driver’s side door open and the engine running. One caller told dispatchers that “a man ran from the vehicle saying ‘It’s going to blow,'” Jordan said. Officer Shelby responded while en route to another call. Crutcher was unarmed, and police found no weapon in his vehicle, Jordan said.

A vial of PCP was found in Crutcher’s vehicle, but police did not say whether he had the drug in his system.

As Shelby’s attorney, Scott Wood, described the incident to Tulsa World, no one was around when Shelby arrived, “so she isn’t really sure what is going on.” At some point, Shelby attempted to engage Crutcher, who ignored her questions and commands that he not reach toward his pocket, Wood said. Shelby, who according to her lawyer is an expert at detecting when people are on drugs, thought Crutcher was behaving like someone using PCP. She drew her gun after Crutcher began to walk toward his vehicle and put his hand in his left pocket. (Tulsa police confirmed to Tulsa World that a vial of PCP was found in Crutcher’s vehicle, but did not say whether Crutcher had the drug in his system.)

Shelby “cleared” the right side of Crutcher’s car, and when she started toward the other side to check it, Crutcher approached her. (None of this is in the videos, which show that Shelby already had her weapon out as Crutcher approached his vehicle with his hands up.) When her backup arrived, Woods said, the responding officer drew his Taser because he perceived Crutcher’s movements as threatening. But it was a second cop who fired his Taser at Crutcher just before Shelby fired her gun.

Shelby’s husband, also a police officer, was in the helicopter that recorded one of the videos of Crutcher’s shooting, a Tulsa police spokesperson told the World. He was not the cop who called Crutcher a “bad dude,” the spokesperson said.

The family’s take: On Monday, Crutcher’s twin sister Tiffany said her brother was on his way home from classes at his community college when he had car trouble and encountered police. She called for criminal charges to be filed against Officer Shelby and asked that anyone protesting her brother’s killing keep things peaceful. Attorneys for Crutcher’s family called the shooting unjustified, saying that Crutcher could not have reached into his car because video shows the window was closed when he was shot and that his hands were raised, and that he did not appear to have a weapon, make any sudden movements, or threaten police—nor was he a criminal suspect. One attorney, David Riggs, said Crutcher was “someone needing help from either a mental or a medical condition—perhaps intoxicated,” when he was shot, “but in a condition needing assistance of the police.” Tiffany, Crutcher’s sister, took issue with the helicopter officer’s characterization of her brother: “That big ‘bad dude’ was a father. That big ‘bad dude’ was a son,” she said. “I want everybody to know: That big ‘bad dude,’ his life mattered.”

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate