Cop Who Killed an Unarmed Man Teaching a Class About 'Surviving the Aftermath'
The former Tulsa, OK, police officer who shot and killed unarmed black motorist Terence Crutcher in 2016 has entered a new phase of her professional law enforcement career: teaching other cops how to “survive” incidents where they shoot other people.
Betty Shelby, who was charged with manslaughter for the roadside killing of Crutcher, is scheduled to begin teaching a class titled, “Surviving the Aftermath of a Critical Incident” at the Tulsa County Sheriff’s office on Tuesday. Shelby was acquitted last year; after being reassigned to a desk job within the Tulsa police force, she subsequently took a position with the nearby Rogers County Sheriff’s Department.
Speaking with KTUL in May, Shelby described her course:
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…. Our life is not the same. It will never be the same again. We have our new normal and that new normal has so many different aspects to it and it’s what we live with.
The grim irony of a white police officer giving pointers on “how to survive legally, emotionally, and physically” after killing an unarmed black man was not lost on many in the community, who showed up the day before her class began to protest Shelby’s return to Tulsa.