Betty Jo Shelby is a 43-year-old law enforcement officer who countered an individual’s reportedly furtive actions which tragically culminated in her decision to pull the trigger, resulting in the horrific death of 40-year-old Terence Crutcher on September 18, 2016. The outcry was voluminous. Various angles recorded by police car and police aviation units depicted Mr. Crutcher with his hands raised in the air, walking towards his vehicle and away from police officers. Police officers stated Mr. Crutcher was not responding to repeated verbal commands.
Ultimately, Shelby asserted she opened fire when Crutcher reached towards his driver-door window which was down, placing her in “reasonable fear” for her life. Shelby fired her service weapon while a back-up officer, Tyler Turnbough, deployed his Taser. Shelby fired one shot. Mr. Crutcher died at the hospital.
One week after the officer-involved shooting (OIS), Shelby was charged with first-degree manslaughter and tried in a court of law while the court of public opinion called for her head. As one in an increasing series of cops criminally charged while defending themselves against would-be assailants, Shelby was eventually acquitted by a jury of her peers on May 17, 2017. Days after the acquittal and being placed on “administrative desk duty,” Shelby resigned from the Tulsa Police Department for which she worked at the time of the shooting death. Shelby admits she felt shunned by her police colleagues after the OIS. Shelby shared that aspect with KTUL News: “When I returned to work at TPD, I was put in isolation. I was put back into a place completely isolated from the officers. I was told that it was for my safety.”
Incidentally, for any knee-jerk thinkers engrossed in the blame-game, “desk duty” is not a sign of guilt, shame, or cloaking. Although it ordinarily typifies a cop who messed up and is on administrative punishment mandated by command staff, it is also a method for cops who are injured yet still able to perform some duties, albeit limited. But in the Shelby instance, it was a purely psychological element multi-purposed for all parties. Imagine having to take someone’s life. Unequivocally, that deserves a mature time-out to reset. A police psychologist is tasked with examining the police officer(s) involved in the OIS. What are they sifting through? Any crumbs indicating PTSD, pent-up anger, self-doubt, self-destruction ideations, and any potential cracks in the mindset. Investigators dissect every aspect of the OIS so as to ensure transparent conclusions; typically, an outside police agency conducts the post-shooting investigation. Having the involved officer(s) at their disposal (at the station) helps.
Further, desk duty permits police executives to gauge the next steps pertaining to internal changes such as assignment adjustments, policy ameliorations (not to imply deficiency but to progressively enhance an already solid yet perhaps dated protocol), basically…a cooling-down period allowing the tumultuous climate to simmer. Moreover, police administration poises to counter any civil tort claims (lawsuits) against their OIS participant(s) and/or the agency as a whole. Basically, desk duty preserves the sanctity of the agency and its personnel (recuperating and regrouping) from public lambast (Shelby received death threats, so being on the streets served zero purpose), allowing the matter to distill down to some sense of normalcy. I guess it is a manner of bearing responsibility while oppositionists troll along on the blame-game treadmill. Time heals all wounds, right?
So, there was Shelby’s prosecution for manslaughter, acquittal by a jury, desk duty and, shortly thereafter, resignation from Tulsa PD. Refraining from recounting the entire incident and respecting Mr. Crutcher’s loved ones, that is a synopsis of what transpired.
Spring forward almost two years later: Shelby is now a full-time deputy with the Rogers County Sheriff’s Office (RCSO) in the county adjoining Tulsa.
She is also instructing law enforcement officers on how to survive the fallout of an officer-involved shooting, in a class she calls “Surviving the Aftermath of a Critical Incident.” As Deputy Shelby explained to the media, the coursework navigates turbulence stemming from “when a police officer is victimized by anti-police groups and tried in the court of public opinion.”
Like any college, university or other educational institution (police academy) teaching material, the curriculum must be evaluated for appropriateness and suitability to a demographic for which educational credits are awarded. Oklahoma’s Council on Law Enforcement Education and Training, the state’s commission governing Oklahoma’s law enforcement officers, approved the subject matter and message Shelby sought to teach other police personnel. The military and law enforcement institutions share the commonalities of never surrendering, staying in the fight, and resiliently rebounding when the odds are stacked against the mission. Most valuable materials evolve from reality and there outcomes. Reports indicate Shelby’s four-hour course is free to law enforcement officers, so there is no money involved other than the academies and other instructional venues picking up the light-bill tab.
Known nationally as “in-service training,” sworn cops apply for and, if approved by their respective agency, enroll in varying courses in all-things-law-enforcement: investigations in burglary, traffic crashes, missing persons, fraud, identity theft, homicide, terrorism, police liability, child abuse, you name it. At either a police academy or the training auditorium of a police department, most of these in-service courses are taught by certified police officers from all points across the country. Some police instructors are police retirees who make a second career out of instructing other sworn cops or cadets who have yet to be certified. Cops who teach do so from a curriculum laden with first-hand experience, seasoning the academia with reality-based lessons a book can never adequately cover. Sometimes, these police instructors incorporate experts in a certain field of study, such as federal agents who investigate Medicare fraud, or IRS agents who handle complex tax-evasion cases, to assist them with actual cases dissected in class. Sometimes, survivors of officer-involved shootings present their respective incidents.
When I was an active-duty police officer, one of my in-service classes encompassed DUI-related fatalities. To everyone’s surprise (a class of 32 cops), the police instructor brought in a few parents and spouses whose loved ones perished in drunk-driver-caused crashes, from DUI drivers’ families and those whose loved ones were stolen by the former. To say the dialogue and testimonies were enlightening is an understatement. To a cop, the aftermath is when crash vehicles are towed to impound lots, when the bodies are assumed by medical examiners, and when the final report is written/submitted for prosecutorial consideration. The macabre sticks with the surviving families and also stays with the lead cops whose names are on the reports comprising all the gore. The latter have much to offer in terms of the fragility of life…and how things go horribly awry.
And that is what Shelby is seeking to achieve by teaching other cops her coping mechanisms pertaining to an officer-involved shooting in which she pulled the trigger and ended someone’s life.
Senior, experienced police officers carry a vast wealth of knowledge and strategies for other cops who may be less seasoned, perhaps reeling from the tragic events such as an OIS in which someone perished. The escalating police suicides across our nation (as well as other countries) bear this out. Indeed, there are consistent sacrifices made by each and every law enforcement officer. And for the sideline pessimists who badger and bark They know what they were getting in to!…you are invited to swill a large cup of logic sweetened with reason and stirred with objectivity.
My learned friend Steve Pomper studied amply enough to write a book on the subject matter of de-policing, related so precisely and objectively, painting the picture of naysayers dissuading cops from their avowed duties. Being chronically harangued, despite indisputable evidence of doing police work lawfully and within legal guidelines, takes its toll when misguided emotions of folks who have not a crumb of experience in cop culture is a constant. These same folks dictate how policing should be done while also bellowing from bullhorns that law enforcement officers are stone-cold murderers. Never mind suspects and their roles initiating/compelling unfortunate outcomes. No, it’s always the fault of the blue. Always.
Following is a Facebook post I stumbled upon, emphasizing the court of public opinion which Shelby railed against: “Tulsa, Oklahoma police officer Betty Shelby resigned from the police force after she flexed her blue privilege and was acquitted of manslaughter charges in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man with his hands in the up in the air. Now, she is going to work for the sheriff’s office in a neighboring county. Hopefully she will not encounter any more unarmed black men with their hands in the air at her new position [emphasis added].”
If that is not a slanted statement, despite what a jury of our peers decided, then depolicing surely is muscling up from such vitriolic garbage. As a constitutionalist, I abide by the system and trust in its findings. That is apparently not a shared tenet.
I reckon the Facebook poster who wrote that statement is one of the protestors supporting Mr. Crutcher’s loved ones who are reportedly angered that Shelby is permitted to teach a course of instruction to cops, the topic of which she experienced to the unfortunate fullest. These oppositionists are not necessarily denying the subject matter, only decrying the person delivering the syllabus: Betty Shelby. Pointedly, they label her a murderer and protest her teaching platform, particularly to other cops. The innuendo is rather audacious: that Shelby will indoctrinate all other police personnel from the perspective of one who got away with murder.
Equal Opportunity
At the base of the stage are Mr. Crutcher’s supporters who are seemingly angst-filled from Shelby’s teaching endeavor. According to Vox, “…this week, Shelby taught the class in Tulsa, where she previously worked and fatally shot Terence Crutcher in 2016. The news attracted a heavy amount of criticism from Tulsa’s black residents. On Monday, activists, members of Crutcher’s family, and community members protested Shelby’s class, arguing that the officer was being given a platform that Crutcher’s family was not.” Where’s mine? attitudes serve only to undermine anything progressive and useful when unresolved issues burn like embers.
The jury decided. It is at that point (or shortly thereafter) that one must decide the course of existence, whether that is to preach a message or silently write down one’s feelings and sentiments. But deciding that what another is doing is wrong is tantamount to hypocrisy and, frankly, self-pity. Indeed, a terrible thing happened and a life was taken. But the democracy we abide by in the United States affords avenues and accords rights for free exercise, whether it be a class or a Nike product endorsed by someone with whom we may disagree.
Respectfully, the Crutcher family and supporters have equal right and ample opportunity to compass-point their own destiny. Politics need not be an ingredient, although it appears it is already thrown in. The Crutcher supporters protesting what Shelby is doing with her life is enormously akin to what some elected officials do nowadays, having tons to do with a false narrative propagandizing others perspectives, philosophies, and activities. Sound familiar?
Evidence
Like in any other case, evidence should control the narrative. However, people inherently possessed of biases will entertain self-fulfilling storylines to suit themselves, ostensibly upturning a nose at that objective stalwart narrator we know as evidence. Science is present, yet emotion-based individuals opposed to accepting the pains of truth borne, inarguable scientific findings bolsters preconceived notions and dismisses facts. That’s too bad.
I find it interesting that a Vox Media article written by P.R. Lockhart indicated the following funneled, bifurcated limitations: “The controversy surrounding Shelby and her course calls attention to complicated issues often left unaddressed in the wake of police shootings of black men and women, particularly when it comes to who gets to control the narrative of a police shooting.”
That presupposes that someone gets to lead the vocal pack while the other party’s constitutional rights ought to be suffocated. Moreover, by citing a demographic among a much larger populace confronting the same realities of encounters whereby police are placed in dire circumstances, compelling discharge of service weapons, protecting themselves and others from aggressors who are clearly discounting lawful commands…denies the stone-cold truth recorded in the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports. There is no evidence of what anti-cop sorts claim: That police are determinedly out to kill people of any particular color. Reading entire stories instead of just gleaning the color swatches the lovely media sloppily paints, catchy narrative words and all, can be thought-provoking and crystalizing.
Many spoke of Crutcher’s hands-in-the-air posture; they edited the part where he reportedly lowered them and reached inside his automobile, prompting Shelby to make that proverbial split-second decision.
As Shelby told ABC-affiliate KTUL in Oklahoma: “I have a class that I teach to officers to give them the tools to survive such events. It’s a way of surviving financially, legally, emotionally, and physically.” I suspect former Ferguson, Missouri police Officer Darren Wilson would benefit from such a lecture series. I recall reading follow-up material expounding on how Wilson had no choice but to go underground, just to stay alive.
In fact, Deputy Shelby states her impetus for teaching is akin to the “Ferguson Effect” whereby cops refrain from duty performance based on the monstrous mistreatment of the law enforcement profession. Essentially, the Ferguson Effect manifests in cops backing off the beat while criminals turn up the heat; without proactive policing, crime rates soar. Some simply define it as the product of cop-bashing and ambush tactics employed by deranged folks.
While Terence Crutcher’s loved ones and supporters opine against Shelby, picking up the pieces and assembling them into usable constructs in police culture goes a long way beyond whining about a perceived broken system and the shallowness of “blue privilege” assertions. Bottom line? All parties have the equal opportunity to do something they believe in. Shelby choosing to teach is equally available for supporters of Mr. Crutcher. The right to speak on a given topic is applicable to both loved ones of Mr. Crutcher as well as Deputy Shelby. The approval of Shelby’s syllabus is just as applicable to Mr. Crutcher’s family.
I find a dose of irony in that Shelby’s class offers something for everyone, not just applicable to cops: “I have a class that I teach to officers to give them the tools to survive such events, and it’s a way of surviving financially, how to survive legally, emotionally and physically.” Her intended lesson may have evolved from a police-oriented encounter but it sure has universal applications in my mind.
I do not know if the encounter between Shelby and Crutcher was avoidable. I do not know if either one escalated the situation whereby a fatality resulted. I do know that there is likely plenty to be said about varying perspectives, allowing folks to make their judgments…just as the jury did with the evidence and testimony they were provided.
Personally and professionally, I’d care to hear constructive sentiments from both sides. That would equip me best, cop or not.
