Cop who killed Terence Crutcher teaching class on “Surviving the Aftermath” to Tulsa officers
According to a report from Splinter, ex-Tulsa, Oklahoma police officer Betty Shelby is about to start teaching a class at the Tulsa Sheriff’s Department. The course, entitled “Surviving the Aftermath of a Critical Incident”, is designed to teach police how to navigate a life after they shoot and kill an innocent person.
As Shelby told KTUL back in May, “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.”
Shelby is the officer who killed Terence Crutcher, an unarmed Black man, and the crowds of protesters who have been demonstrating outside of the Tulsa Sheriff’s Department have not forgotten this. Oklahoma State Representative Regina Goodman recalled Shelby’s explanation of the shooting on 60 Minutes appearance: “You gotta get another teacher because Betty Shelby, you know, she had her ‘60 Minutes,’ and I remember what she said, ‘I would rather be tried by 12 than carried by six, Terence Crutcher didn’t get an opportunity to get that statement.”
A Tulsa activist group called We The People Oklahoma released a statement condemning Shelby’s involvement in teaching the class, explaining, “We The People Oklahoma seriously questions both the judgment and motives that the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office would have in allowing Deputy Shelby to direct such a crucial course. After all, Shelby herself shifted the blame from Crutcher’s death both to police training videos and, shockingly, Crutcher himself. Although she was ultimately acquitted, jurors cautioned in a letter that they found Shelby wholly unfit to ever serve as a law enforcement officer.”
Shelby, who now works at the Rogers County Police Department, was defended by her current boss, Sheriff Scott Walton, who added, “It’s not about opening wounds… It’s about Betty Shelby teaching something that opens law enforcement’s eyes. If this was taught to the community, I think it would open [their] eyes to what law enforcement has to endure.”