Police officer Betty Shelby will be charged with first-degree manslaughter in the shooting death of Terence Crutcher, according to The New York Times.
Shelby, who works for the Tulsa police department and is white, claimed she “was never so scared in her life” as in her encounter with Crutcher, who is black. She was responding to a call about an abandoned car when she encountered Crutcher outside his SUV. Shelby said he acted strangely, didn’t follow commands and was reaching through his car’s window when he was tasered and shot. But multiple videos of the incident showed that Crutcher had his hands up, CNN reports.
Tulsa Police Chief Chuck Jordan has confirmed that Crutcher was unarmed and there was no weapon in his car.
Charges against a police officer for shooting a civilian are rare. The BBC reported in April that between 2005 and 2011, 41 officers were charged with manslaughter or murder—while thousands of people were killed by police.