Copyrite

His car broke down in the middle of the road and he walked back towards it with his hands in the air. A police helicopter was overhead. One of the men in it said: that looks like a bad dude. They sh0t Terence Crutcher next to his own car. Tulsa, Oklahoma. 16 September 2016. He was forty. His SUV had stopped in the middle of the road. He was walking back to it. Officers arrived. A police helicopter was filming from above, and a voice on that recording — one of the men in the aircraft, looking down at a man walking slowly with his hands raised — says he looks like a bad dude. He was unarmed. The window of his vehicle was up and the recordings do not support any suggestion he reached inside. Officer Betty Shelby shot him. He died in the road beside his own car. The footage was released and it is the reason most people know this case at all: the overhead shot of a man walking slowly away from officers with both arms above his head. Shelby was charged with first-degree manslaughter. She was acquitted in 2017. She later returned to work in law enforcement and, by multiple reports, went on to teach a course for officers on surviving the aftermath of a critical incident. Crutcher was a father of four. He was enrolled at a community college and he sang in his church choir. His twin sister, Tiffany Crutcher, left her career and has spent the decade since campaigning on police accountability. Here is the sentence that has kept this case alive longer than most. Everything about his conduct is visible on the tape. He walks slowly. His hands never come down. He does nothing sudden.