NOT GUILTY: Jury clears Betty Shelby in shooting of Terence Crutcher

TULSA — The jury in the Officer Betty Shelby case has found her not guilty of manslaughter in the shooting death of Terence Crutcher last September.

It was an interesting and busy day in the courtroom. Closing arguments took more than two hours followed by the jury receiving instructions and beginning deliberations.

About 9:30 p.m., KRMG learned the jury had reached a verdict after more than nine hours of deliberation.

In the early afternoon the defense asked for a mistrial based on what they termed “prosecutorial misconduct.” Judge Drummond denied the request and deliberations continued.

Just after 6:30 PM the jury sent a message to the judge saying they had a question.

They wanted to know how the verdict should be delivered and asked if they could make a statement saying how and why they came to their decision.

Drummond told the 12 the verdict would need to be delivered in open court and denied the request to explain.

The incident began when Shelby drove up on Crutcher, whose car was parked in the middle of the road.

Crutcher was outside the vehicle, acting strangely.

Shelby approached and began issuing commands, which Crutcher ignored.

She maintained all along that as a drug-recognition expert, she felt Crutcher was high on something.

Eventually, Crutcher approached the side of his vehicle, and according to some witnesses, began to reach inside the vehicle.

One officer deployed a Taser, and more or less simultaneously, Shelby fired a single shot, which proved fatal.

The shooting led to national headlines, marches in the streets in support of the Crutcher family, and put Tulsa once again in the spotlight on the issues of race relations and police procedures.

Tulsa’s Fraternal Order of Police was a vocal supporter of Shelby, holding press conference in which they said Tulsa County D.A. Steve Kunzweiler had rushed to judgement in the case, filing the manslaughter charge before all the facts were known.

Crutcher family supporters, however, pointed out that in their opinion being high on drugs and non-compliant with a peace officer do not constitute capital crimes.

With visits from Rev. Al Sharpton on one hand, and a controversial “60 Minutes” appearance by Shelby on the other, media interest in the case was high from the beginning.

Both sides have urged that any protests or public gatherings in the wake of the verdict remain peaceful.

LISTEN to the KRMG Morning News 8am In-Depth Hour on the Betty Shelby verdict here