Tulsa Country DA charges Officer Betty Shelby with manslaughter in the first degree
That was quick.
And not really surprising, from what I’ve seen and read so far. More facts will no doubt be coming out as the case proceeds.
I plan to write more tomorrow on the topic.
In a different but related matter, I recommend this post by Andrew Branca, the go-to guy on the law of self-defense. He deals with the legal issues surrounding a question that’s come up recently: “Is it lawful self-defense to ‘run down’ rioters surrounding your vehicle?”
This also came out:
A vial of angel dust, according to the Tulsa PD, was found in his car. Furthermore:
[PJ Media]
But whatever they find out, she’s toast, just like Darren Wilson.
We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are crated equal, endowed by their Creater with certain inalienable rights, amond which are . . . life
If tje government tells you that it is illegal to take action to defend your life, then it is time to take action to change the government.
I would take my chances in court. Unless, of course I had a carry permit and had them outgunned; then I would probably wait until they smashed the windows and choose the ugliest one.
There was a story– don’t know if true–that a white guy drove through the Charlotte mob waving a pistol out the window. And according to the commentator, they let him live.
I hear in one news report that anothere poor white guy got the (deleted) beat out of himself in Charlotte just because he was in the wrong place.
Seriously, if this stuff keeps up no one can predict when they might stumble into the middle of something extremely dangerous. Sure happened in LA.
Early reporting from an unreliable source, but the following
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/officer-who-shot-terence-crutcher-has-history-of-drug-use-domestic-disturbances_us_57e3f0f8e4b08d73b82fd9ae
Huffington Post article has some background information on Offcer Shelby which is interesting. The points that I find troubling are her domestic violence problems (please read it). Big enough to get into the police/legal sphere. Answered yes to marijuana (maybe she didn’t inhale), but the domestic violence sticks out. Says poor emotional management to me. But on a larger view, my question is: did the police relax the standards for a woman, because — diversity? So, do we have two sacred cows in play here? A white officer/black guy shot. Black guy is clean and pure … or is he? Female cop, has to be better than male to be considered to be as good … or maybe she’s not. No laughing matters here. Looks like two lives ruined, plus families and friends.
Glenn Reynolds thinks it’s OK; Twitter does not.
Beverly
None of the things you listed that Crutcher has in his past would receive a death sentence in court. None excuse him being shot now.
It sounds like the charges against the officer are just.
Bill, it’s never the issue whether the crime of the person being stopped would otherwise be considered worthy of Punishment X. As long as you are applying that standard you are going to be judging law-enforcement unfairly. These events occur in real time, with many lives potentially on the line. Stroking the chin and pondering what might have been best while the butler brings another scotch is loads of fun, but irrelevant.
I write this as a person who has worked in a state psychiatric hospital for many years and has seen frightening situations develop quickly – which are second-guessed in court for months afterward. I admit I am sounding defensive and a little resentful here, but understand that people who face violence have earned that right, at least.
The jury will have more evidence than any of us will. I note that the deceased was not the angel he was portrayed as, though.
Stroking the chin and pondering what might have been best while the butler brings another scotch is loads of fun, but irrelevant.
Understood. I know these are hard situations. If it helps
1. I don’t think any of this is fun
2. It would be fun to have a butler, but I don’t.
3. While we can’t just always assume the cop was in the wrong, in this case the evidence we’ve seen is pretty overwhelming that Crutcher did not “deserve” to be killed.
Can we not at least agree on that? I have African American friends, and I’ve taken some time to listen to the perspectives from the AA community. The knee-jerk reaction that many whites have to just assume the guy somehow got what he deserved is terrifying to many in the AA community, who feel that if they are stopped they have to do everything perfect or they might be next. In the first few examples (Trayvon Martin, the Ferguson incident, etc) I assumed that the shooter was probably fearing for his life. But more came – more and more and more instances of this including a guy just reaching for his wallet and another guy being shot in the back, on film, while running away. I started questioning my biases.
Based on everything we’ve heard, Crutcher was acting funny or under the influence, but wasn’t being violent and he had his hands up for much of the time. I’ve heard people even defend the shooting because he was “big and scary”. If he was our dad or our brother or our uncle who maybe had a little too much to drink coming home from the bar – well, wouldn’t any of us be a little less quick to defend the cop’s actions in those cases?
I note that the deceased was not the angel he was portrayed as, though.
It doesn’t matter. Based on what we know, he didn’t deserve to be killed.
I have seen enough videos of the Charlotte riots to make me pretty grumpy. In particular, the cars and trucks (semis) immobilized on the Interstate at night, the semis opened, cargo thrown out onto a pyre in the middle of the highway.
What, Dear Mr Andrew Branca, great legal guru, are the drivers of those immobilized vehicles supposed to do? Flee their vehicles, thus exposing themselves to the mob? Sit there and await a windshield smash, having no defense? What? Oh, Branca of the Ivory Tower, you did not say, did you?
The lawyers have the luxury of chin-stroking at leisure. And of course debating. What they do.
The victims of this black mob do not have the same pontificating hair-splitting luxury.
One video, undoubtedly taken by a black thug, showed a young white guy in a parking garage set upon by a bunch of black thugs who beat him up, knocked him down, ripped off his pants, dragged him around.
So the National Guard and NC State police show up 12-24 hrs later. Big whoopee.
The whole thing is revolting. Blacks are harming themselves in the long run. Gun sales in Charlotte rocketed today…queues outside gun shops! FBI has approved background checks for 1.7 million weapons sold this year. nationally.
I am waiting for the first real response in force against these black race riots, “protests” as an excuse for looting, arson, and thuggery.
Does my disgust for lawyers like Branca come across? My disgust for the squishy Democratic female who’s Charlotte’s mayor? My disgust for all the passive Leftists and the rotten “culture” of black America, the culture of no fathers, the culture of demands?
Disgusting.
A very quick decision by the DA. It does show how the system is supposed to work. The officer will have her day in court. The facts will come out. Hopefully, justice will be served.
That said, it is a double tragedy. One dead, one life in ruins. Few think their lives may rest on a split second decision when they leave home. Yet, it too often does for both police and those who run afoul of the law.
Yet, why is the shooting of a black man by a police officer (and often a black police officer) a bigger deal than the over 300 blacks shot by other blacks in Chicago this year? The answer: There is a political activists such as the Democratic Alliance that funds ““Movements that are challenging the status quo and that do so to some extent by using direct action or disruptive tactics that are meant to make people uncomfortable,…” that wants to destabilize society. This is very similar to the Black Panthers and other such left leaning racist groups that tried to destabilize society in the 60s. The efforts of the Black Panthers and the Black Power movement might have been more successful back then if they had had today’s social media and the big bucks of people like George Soros available to them.
There is definitely an activist movement going on to delegitimize the police. It is primarily in the form of Black Lives Matter, which is definitely financed by far left progressives, for which, see this:
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/major-donors-consider-funding-black-lives-matter-215814
In all these cases of police shootings of black men or women, we see an almost immediate avalanche of protest and anti-police propaganda. Many of the protestors are trained professional agitators who rush to the scene, such as in Charlotte, N.C. All the better to delegitimize the police and render them less capable of doing their job. We are already reaping a crop of rising crime and death in our inner cities.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/04/01/murders-shootings-soar-chicago-through-first-three-months-2016/82507210/
Think it isn’t working? Just read the comments about these shootings on blogs.
Frog:
Your disgust for Andrew Branca is misplaced, to say the least.
Do you think he’s telling you what you should do? Do you think he’s telling you what’s right and wrong? He’s not telling you anything of the sort, nor is he suggesting that he’s telling you that.
He’s telling you one thing and one thing only: what the law is. And yes, lawyers do that. Knowing the law—and therefore the possible consequences for their actions—helps people to make informed decisions.
Now, you may not like the law. But being angry at a lawyer for informing you of it is illogical, emotional, and could be self-destructive in the end.
Here is a story of another killing in OK – bet no one out of state heard about this….
http://www.koco.com/news/suspect-identified-as-17yearold-in-deadly-midwest-city-store-clerk-shooting/41710872
It is a black on another POC (mideastern name) crime. Who is protesting about this person…. That was a question asked by a friend of mine – a former military police officer who worked the Murrah Building site and did a lot more overseas. But, I haven’t heard if he’s been captured, so I’m nervous, but ready.
Think it isn’t working? Just read the comments about these shootings on blogs.
If US citizens didn’t want to fight insurgents, they should have kept the US military in Iraq, so that they could gain the knowledge of how to fight insurgents.
But because America chose to destroy that chance at redemption from Vietnam, America has reaped the hell that people deserve.
Now as for riots, it’s a great chance to use those “self defense” mumbo jumbo legal justifications people talk a lot about.
If the police aren’t justified to shoot criminals… well that’s because they have different rules and limitations, and more powers. If as a civilian you get attacked, you can always claim self defense for the homicide killing of various attackers.
The civilians are too hesitant and weak, thus they get killed. The police are trained to be too hair trigger reactive, and they kill slightly more than they should. In a just and harmonious society, the problem would balance themselves out, but they don’t.
I find that ironic.
Oh I forgot, JJ is of course correct in the assessment and research concerning the Black Panther terrorists behind BLM.
Black Panthers and Nation of Islam had a hand in both Malcom X and Martin Luther King’s assassinations. Why? Because they couldn’t hijack the civil rights movement if the leaders refused to be controlled.
Malcom X, after all, converted to Islam and then decided Islam was bad enough to leave it.
He’s telling you one thing and one thing only: what the law is. And yes, lawyers do that. Knowing the law–and therefore the possible consequences for their actions–helps people to make informed decisions.
Now, you may not like the law. But being angry at a lawyer for informing you of it is illogical, emotional, and could be self-destructive in the end.
People are beginning to have a sneaking suspicion that this thing they call the “Law” only applies to certain people, and that lawyers not only interpret the Law, but also make it up as they go along, such as HRC Clinton and other elite products of Harvard Law or any other association of lawyers.
Of course, self defense laws for each state is very different. If there is a stand your ground law, then damage to vehicular property might count as justification for lethal force. Certainly non lethal force would be justified.
As usual, if police need body cams to justify their actions to the public… then civilians can and should use their smartphones to document and upload videos to Facebook or youtube, so it gets backed up by the internet.
Some special apps might be needed if you want to upload, however.
This way, you don’t need to worry about the law, you just need to document what you see, and if you see levels of force being used, then it might be a car jacking. Even if it isn’t a car jacking, if you have evidence that shows a reasonable interpretation of such, then it’s golden.
The Law, so to speak, can’t be changed by a single individual any time soon nor can they enforce or interpret it. But a single individual or families in cars, can definitely work together to get some video documentation. At least police won’t usually try to confiscate it by saying “you can’t tape us”.
Branca is bound by legal issues and lawsuit problems, so he isn’t going to “recommend” much of anything. That is the lawyer following the Law, in order to protect himself. Since he doesn’t have the political pull of a HRC to ignore the law while also protecting himself. But is that really the Law at work though… oh well.
She also turned herself in..
do note that with the world doing what they are doing to police, its also understandable that police who are getting killed, being targeted, and all that would be double nervous, and double nervous in such situations is triple dangerous… for EVERYONE…
thats not an excuse, nor will it mitigate things
but thats whats going on..
meanwhile, we finally got the troops out
as we get closer to the election….
note that right now, we have a smaller military than at any time in modern history… and we have a higher borrowing costs than we had to fight WWII, WWI, Vietnam, Korea, combined… we have fired our most experienced, demoralized the troops, removed their benefits, billed them for lost equipment when shot at, removed the armor to save money, and TONS more.
@ Bill. Understood, but I think you are wrong. I have not seen more and more and more of unjustified shootings, and the statistics over the last two decades bear me out – though the last two years are very uneven and squirrelly.
I would raise the question of which set of knees is jerking first, at least in terms of national media. Rightly or wrongly, people in comments sections clearly believe that they are pushing back against a narrative of police violence that is already embedding in the national consciousness in every case before anything is really known.
These have a powerful cumulative effect, as we can see from the riots by people who are instantly quite sure they are right, but later information does not cause them to rethink their position. Because Michael Brown’s mother was brought up on stage as part of the Mothers of the Movement and the Democratic Convention is testimony to the distressing reality that facts don’t seem to matter, and some people* prefer to become irate.
*not all of them black, and not all blacks included in that “some.”
Neo, I wish you would really read my entire comment and consider it in globo. Like, what are the drivers of the stopped vehicles on the Interstate to do when surrounded by a mob of vandalizing black arsonists? Just take a smashed windshield, and cower at what may come next? What are the drivers’ lawful remedies? Are they relevant? In real time?
Await a deadly assault? Empty a gun at these vandalizing Black thugs before they are assaulted because they rightly fear for their lives?
What?
Call a law professor?
Glenn Reynolds, a law professor, had it right: Keep going, don’t stop. Hit them if they do not get out of the way.
But when stopped en mass on an Interstate, surrounded by Vandals, Hun-equivalents, pillagers, the contemporary equivalent of slave-takers, what to do?
We’re not going to take it any more.
I do not only keep a revolver in each of my vehicles; I also keep a box of bullets.
The witchhunt is on!
As I feared, the “investigation” process that has been honed by attacking males for their interactions with females on campus is now about to be unleashed on Professor Glenn Reynolds:
http://twitchy.com/gregp-3534/2016/09/22/now-instapundit-being-investigated-by-utklaw-over-charlotte-riot-tweet/
You have probably not been closely following the actions of university “investigations” of “rape” allegations by university administrator types. Suffice to say that they make KKK discussions before a lynching look like Supreme Court deliberations. Professor Reynold is already guilty – note the published opinion of the Grand Inquisitor leading the “investigation”:
“Professor Reynolds’ comments do not reflect my views and opinions, nor do they reflect the values of the college and university.”
Various leftist groups have “investigated” Professor Reynolds and found him to be the worst kind of professor one can imagine – a conservative. Therefore, they have marshaled the left wing forces so famous for “righting the wrongs” of conservative professors and unleashed them on professor Reynolds.
Any reasonable person can quickly google the information necessary to determine that professor Reynolds has apologized for his remarks and clarified them with context (remember; the original sin was committed on Twitter). That should be the end of it. It will not be if the SJW’s have anything to say about it and believe me they do.
Professor Reynolds will be fine in any event. Some might say that he will be better off not being part of the embarrassment the American university system has become.
Eric may have suggestions how professor Reynolds may be supported. The SJW’s are gathering the sticks for the bonfire as we speak.
Meanwhile, in Chicago:
http://heyjackass.com
488 homicides year to date, more than 2 per day. Read the stats, plan your vacation accordingly. Viewer discretion advised. Please check your prejudices at the door. All of them.
If you are interested, here is Professor Reynolds’ statement:
http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2016/09/22/university-tennessee-professors-twitter-account-suspended-over-charlotte-posts/90825720/
Some people online, including here, probably thought I was being rather exaggerating when I said civil war 2 would be coming to a state near you soon enough. They thought riots and maybe some petty crime would not lead to full scale war.
The thing people don’t want to understand is that a lot of insurgent and guerilla actions in Iraq and Afghanistan were just petty crime and some rioting. The reason why they could use bombs and kill squads, is the same reason Dallas happens from Black Panthers and Nation of Islam. They get outside funding, from Soros for example. They get trained up, they have an inside group of fanatics that are willing to gin stuff up.
AQ, for example, bombed markets in the Sunni Triangle. Why? Just to destabilize the occupation’s law and order, no other reason really, most of who they killed were other Muslims and their kids, not US troops.
Why are BLM destabilizing US cities? Because it allows Soros, Hussein’s Regime, and everybody else to move in and occupy it, just like Fallujah was occupied.
Also, in addition, one good reason the Left had for ending the US opportunity at redemption in Iraq, was because the Left didn’t want any of us to use COIN doctrine against them in the Left’s inner cities, ghettoes, and black plantation setups. They might be fine with knocking down Saddam as a dictator, HRC got Libya’s leader killed after all. But they aren’t fine with the US military and the US patriot leaders learning how to fight insurgents. That’s a big no no, ever since Vietnam at least.
WHy? Probably because the Leftist alliance is full of insurgents and terrorists in the uS, they don’t want anybody figuring out how to fight that.
Frog:
I read your comment. Your rage at lawyers is clouding your judgment about what Branca wrote.
If you don’t want to pay attention to his legal advice, there’s a simple remedy: don’t. He’s merely telling you the possible/probable legal consequences of your actions so that you could make an informed decision if ever in that particular situation. He’s not telling you what to do or not do.
That’s one of the things lawyers do. They give advice on the law so that you can be informed. If you want to close your eyes and stick your fingers in your ears, that’s your prerogative. But your rage at him is totally misplaced.
Branca also provided two links at the end of his LI post that directed you to other articles with some very concrete advice. Did you follow the links?
Got an opinion on the police shooting in Charlotte? Get ready to change it.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2016/09/23/nbc-obtains-video-of-charlotte-police-shooting-keith-lamont-scott.html?via=desktop&source=copyurl
See the video and tell me it doesn’t cause you to perhaps rethink your opinion of the shooting.
Y,
I get what you say, but there is no choir. 😉
Do we need a choir?
Frog is right to be suspicious of lawyers. In this case, it’s probably irrelevant as Branca won’t give any advice even if he could, because he could be sued for it. That makes him sound weak, cause in truth, that’s how it is.
Oh the wisdom and the profundity! Iraq in 2007 is USA in 2016 or the USA in 2016 is Iraq in 2007./s
I better ask Eric for a second opinion, since then BS is getting pretty deep with that bit of “analysis.”