{"id":4186,"date":"2017-05-19T15:26:37","date_gmt":"2017-05-19T19:26:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/?p=4186"},"modified":"2017-05-19T15:26:37","modified_gmt":"2017-05-19T19:26:37","slug":"the-verdict-in-tulsa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/the-verdict-in-tulsa\/","title":{"rendered":"THE VERDICT IN TULSA"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m sure a lot of the public who saw the acquittal this week of Betty Jo Shelby, the Tulsa police officer charged with Manslaughter in the shooting death of Terence Crutcher, said to themselves \u201cGosh, Toto, I don\u2019t think we\u2019re in Kansas anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, at the moment, I am <\/em>in Kansas, teaching a MAG-40 armed citizens rules of engagement class at the superb Thunderbird Firearms Academy<\/a> in Wichita.\u00a0 One of the students came in this morning and said, \u201cIt looks as if the defense lawyers in that Tulsa case did exactly what you told us our lawyers should do if we were ever charged after a self-defense shooting.\u201d<\/p>\n

No kiddin\u2019.\u00a0 I can\u2019t blame those folks who were puzzled by the acquittal in \u201cthe shooting of an unarmed black man.\u201d They live in a world where the media doesn\u2019t bother to tell anyone the difference between murder, manslaughter, and justifiable homicide.<\/p>\n

Officer Shelby had observed erratic behavior from a large man who appeared to her to the under the influence of PCP.\u00a0 This would later be supported by evidence: Crutcher had PCP within his body, and a quantity of it in his car.\u00a0 After repeatedly ignoring lawful commands, he suddenly reached to the open window of his car, as if for a weapon.\u00a0 It was enough to cause the male officer present to fire his TASER at Crutcher, and enough to cause Shelby to fire the single pistol shot that killed him.<\/p>\n

The public was told that, in this video-taped encounter, Crutcher had his hands up.\u00a0 At one point he did, but when he was shot<\/em>, he was reaching as if for a weapon inside the car, with no earthly reason to do so unless he was trying to access a weapon to kill a cop.\u00a0 The public was told that the window was closed, but by the opening of trial, even the prosecution had to admit that no, it was open.<\/p>\n

Talking heads who followed the trial wailed that the defense was foolish to put the defendant on the witness stand, because that just isn\u2019t done.\u00a0 BS.\u00a0 In a defensive shooting, what it comes down to is why did she shoot him?\u00a0 <\/em>There was only one person who could answer that \u2013 and she did.<\/p>\n

The defense called material witnesses who confirmed that in police training, Officer Shelby had learned how quickly someone could snatch up a gun and kill a cop with it.\u00a0 It is supposed to be a jury of one\u2019s peers.\u00a0 A peer would know what the defendant knew.\u00a0 Now the jury knew it, too.<\/p>\n

The public was told that corrupt investigators had whitewashed Shelby.\u00a0 That allegation is very decisively refuted, here: http:\/\/lawofficer.com\/investigations\/crutcher-family\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There turned out to be no gun in Crutcher\u2019s car, but in such cases, the law has never demanded that there be one.\u00a0 All the law demands is that, within the totality of the circumstances, the defendant reasonably perceived that she and her brother officer were in danger of death or great bodily harm (i.e., crippling injury).\u00a0 In shorthand, \u201cYou don\u2019t have to be right, <\/em>you have to be reasonable.\u201d <\/em>The defense team got that across to the jury.<\/p>\n

Congratulations to Attorney Shannon MacMurray and the rest of Betty Shelby\u2019s defense team. From everything I\u2019ve seen about the case, they did Justice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m sure a lot of the public who saw the acquittal this week of Betty Jo Shelby, the Tulsa police officer charged with Manslaughter in the shooting death of Terence Crutcher, said to themselves \u201cGosh, Toto, I don\u2019t think we\u2019re in Kansas anymore.\u201d Well, at the moment, I am in Kansas, teaching a MAG-40 armed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":6428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4186","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-current-events"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}