Posted April 3, 2017 8:44 am by Comments

By Jennifer Cruz

Tulsa police officer Betty Jo Shelby said she thinks officials were quick to charge her because they feared civil unrest. (Photo: CBS)
The Tulsa police officer who fatally shot a black man last year said race did not play a factor in her decision to pull the trigger, but rather the man’s own actions and the fear they instilled in her.
Tulsa officer Betty Jo Shelby, who was charged with manslaughter for killing Terence Crutcher, appeared on 60 Minutes on Sunday to explain, among other details, why she thinks the shooting was justified.
Parts of the fatal encounter were captured on both dash cam and video taken from a police helicopter hovering above. At one point in the video, Crutcher clearly had his hands raised in the air, which rekindled the fiery debate over law enforcement and race relations. Shelby is white, while Crutcher was black. But despite the debate, Shelby contends it was not the color of Crutcher’s skin that caused her to react the way she did.
Shelby, who is trained as a Drug Recognition Expert, said in the interview that when she first encountered Crutcher – about 10 minutes before the shooting took place – her first thought was that

Source: Guns.com

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