*Betty Shelby, the Tulsa policewoman who fatally shot Terence Crutcher, turned herself in overnight, according to TMZ, and was booked for first degree manslaughter. Prosecutors filed the charge against her late Thursday.
If convicted, she faces a minimum of four years in prison.
Shelby was in police custody for less than half an hour, the website reported. According to her docs, she was booked at 1:11 a.m. and released at 1:31 a.m. after posting $50,000 bond.
In the criminal complaint, the Tulsa D.A. says Shelby’s “fear resulted in her unreasonable actions” which led to her shooting and killing 40-year-old Crutcher on Sept. 16.
Crutcher died from “a penetrating gunshot wound of chest” and his death was ruled a homicide, according to the Oklahoma State Medical Examiner’s Office. Officer Shelby is charged with “becoming emotionally involved to the point that she over reacted”, according to Thursday’s court document.
Her lawyer says she fired because Crutcher was not following orders and, she believes, was reaching into his vehicle’s window. However, video of the shooting seems to show that the window was closed.
The Tulsa County affidavit, filed with the charge against Shelby, accuses her of “escalating the situation from a confrontation with Mr. Crutcher.”
The affidavit says she told homicide investigators “she was in fear for her life and thought Mr. Crutcher was going to kill her.”
“When she began following Mr. Crutcher to the vehicle with her duty weapon drawn, she was yelling for him to stop and get on his knees repeatedly,” it says. The affidavit says Crutcher was not responding to Shelby’s verbal commands and was walking away from her with his hands held up.
Prosecutors say Shelby either killed the father-of-four impulsively in a fit of anger, or that she wrongly killed him as she sought to detain him.
The affidavit also indicates that Shelby “cleared the driver’s side front” of Crutcher’s vehicle before she began interacting with him. This would indicate she had checked whether there was a gun on the driver’s side of the vehicle.
Police acknowledge that Crutcher did not have a gun on him or in his vehicle.
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