Officer Betty Shelby is being charged with first-degree manslaughter in the shooting death of unarmed Terence Crutcher, whose car was stalled in the middle of a Tulsa road. While her partner, overhead helicopters, and a handful of other law enforcement vehicles were descending upon the scene, Officer Shelby says she went deaf—temporarily.
The probable cause affidavit for her arrest states that another officer told Shelby he had a Taser ready to deploy before she shot Crutcher, who was unarmed, on Sept. 16. But her attorney told the Tulsa World on Friday that she never heard that comment, also not realizing other officers had arrived and were standing with her.
Scott Wood, who represents Shelby, said she experienced “auditory exclusion.” Wood described it as a phenomenon officers often experience in critical incidents that results in a temporary loss of hearing.
Defense attorneys specializing in police malfeasance cases will be watching how this case goes, because that is some great excuse for being so bad at your job you kill an innocent person with a gun. This is her best defense since her backup officer told her he had out his taser and she decided to kill Terence Crutcher.
“Shelby reacted unreasonably by escalating the situation from a confrontation with Mr. Crutcher, who was not responding to verbal commands and was walking away from her with his hands held up, becoming emotionally involved to the point that she overreacted,” according to the affidavit.
And while it seems pretty clear that the window of Crutcher’s vehicle was up during the confrontation, making it impossible to reach inside, there are still those who have been successful in casting doubt over that claim. While white women killing black men are at an historical advantage, one interesting thing is that as of right now, more people are giving to the Crutcher family to help them with their loss, as opposed to Officer Shelby’s Get Out of Jail Free fund.
Crutcher’s family established a fund on Wednesday to benefit his four children. As of Friday evening, more than 5,700 donations totaling nearly $160,000 had been made to the fund, which has a goal of $200,000.
That number is up to $166,000 as of this diary, while Shelby’s number is up to $16,000 with 227 donors. It doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things, but things are changing. Regardless of what right-wing media wants you to believe, there are more of us now than ever before in the history of the world.