A 40-year-old black man named Terence Crutcher died at the hospital after being shot by police on Friday, Sept. 16.
According to Associated Press, police shot Crutcher one time on Friday, just before 8 p.m. Police say that the officer shot and killed him after he ignored officers’ commands to to raise his hands, and reached into a stalled SUV in the middle of a road in north Tulsa.
Tulsa World reported that an officer stopped at the SUV around 7:40 p.m. to see why the vehicle was stalled, while on the way to another call. The officer radioed for backup before getting out of the car.
Department spokeswoman Jeanne MacKenzie said that the two officers in the incident were walking toward the vehicle when Crutcher approached them from the side of the road. One officer used a stun gun first, and the other shot him with his gun.
According to the Associated Press report, as of 9 p.m. Friday, MacKenzie said the vehicle has not been searched, so there isn’t any news on if there was a weapon inside.
Damario Solomon Simmons, the lawyer of the Crutcher family, has asked for police to release dash cam video “so this family can have an understanding of what happened, and why they have to bury their brother and son.” Simmons also asked anyone who saw the incident to call his office.
Crutcher’s twin sister said they just celebrated their 40th birthday on Aug. 16, and that he was “laid-back, reserved, had more friends than anybody I knew, loved his children dearly. He loved to sing, and he loved God.”
“We just want answers. We want to know what happened,” she added. “There’s a lot of speculation. One thing I do know, is that my brother was unarmed.”
Below, watch a video of Simmons and Crutcher’s twin sister speaking with Tulsa World.
The officers’ names, races or genders have not been released.
In accordance to department protocol, the officer who shot the man will be placed on leave during the investigation of the shooting.
MacKenzie said video of the shooting may have been captured on the officers’ dash cameras. Tulsa police don’t wear body cameras, according to the report, even though they were selected to receive a cash-match grant for body cameras in $600,000 in 2015.
Family, friends, loved ones and others are speaking about the incident on Twitter with the hashtag #TerenceCrutcher.
The shooting of Crutcher isn’t the first incident in the area. In April, a white reserve Tulsa County sheriff’s deputy named Robert Bates was convicted of manslaughter after shooting an unarmed black suspect who was on the ground being restrained by officers. Bates said he thought he was using his stun gun, not his pistol.
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