Officer felt “threatened” and suspected victim of being high.
A Tulsa police official told Tulsa World on Tuesday that officers found the drug PCP in the vehicle used by Terence Crutcher when he was fatally shot by police. The 40-year-old black man was unarmed when Officer Betty Shelby shot and killed him Friday evening; dashcam and helicopter footage shows he had his hands raised during the encounter. While both state and federal attorneys have begun an investigation into the shooting, Shelby has claimed, via a lawyer, that she felt “threatened” by Crutcher. Tulsa homicide Sgt. Dave Walker declined to say neither where in the car investigators found the PCP vial, nor whether Crutcher had actually used the drug.
