Betty Shelby trial enters second week

TULSA — The trial for a Tulsa police officer charged with manslaughter in the shooting death of an unarmed man moves into its second week Monday morning.

Officer Betty Shelby shot and killed Terence Crutcher in September of last year.

Her supporters have taken to social media to call the prosecution a “witch hunt” and to make the case that she feared for her life, and for the safety of others, when she pulled the trigger.

The local chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police called a news conference to blast District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler for what they said was a “rush to judgement.”

Shelby herself appeared on the CBS news magazine “60 Minutes” to argue that race had nothing to do with her decision to shoot.

But for the Crutcher family and their supporters, race does indeed play a role in how many police officers approach a situation.

Crutcher’s death serves as another in a long list of recent examples of police officers closing ranks and covering for one of their own who has crossed the line, in their opinion.

KRMG met Monroe Padillow and Pastor Mareo Johnson outside the Tulsa County courthouse last week.

Johnson said he actually heard about the shooting before Crutcher’s own family.

A long time friend of the family, he said the news was devastating.

He was the first to arrive at the hospital, where he waited for news as family members began to arrive.

When he learned his friend had died, he said, “I was hurt. When I left from there I went home, and I just cried.”

He and Terence worked together to create Gospel music.
"I liked his singing, he liked my rapping," he said, smiling as he recalled his friend's habit of breaking into song in the middle of a conversation. "You could be talking to him on the phone and he'd bust out into a song."

Padillow, like Johnson a member of Black Lives Matter, didn’t know Crutcher personally.

He told KRMG the community at large - not just Tulsa’s black community - should be watching the case closely.

"We have an opportunity to again show the nation how it's done. I think they did it right in the Bates case, I believe that we have another opportunity now to do it right, and I believe that that will give some great momentum to moving forward across the board."

He said that includes “making sure police officers are safe - and making sure that good police officers that see bad things, (that would) give them the courage and the momentum to go ahead and call that stuff out.”

Supporters of Shelby have argued that a guilty verdict would send a chilling message to police officers around the country.

There’s little doubt that either way the verdict goes, reaction will be highly emotional - and deeply divided.