6/16/20
Before George Floyd, and before there were nationwide protests across the country against police brutality and racism, there was Terence Crutcher. In 2016, 40-year old Crutcher was killed by a Tulsa, Oklahoma, police officer on a roadway. The officer who killed Crutcher, Betty Shelby, was charged with manslaughter, but she was later acquitted. This week, the world's eyes have shifted back to Tulsa, years after the spotlight left following Terence Crutcher's murder. It's a fight that has been waged here in this deeply segregated city for more than 100 years -- intertwining the city's modern-day inhabitants with the struggle of their ancestors, some of whom were murdered and displaced during the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, one of the worst racially-motivated massacres on American soil in the last century. "It's just simply a continuation of what's been going on for years," Tiffany Crutcher said. "The same culture that burned down Black Wall Street and killed innocent people and ran my great grandmother from her home with the same culture, the same police and culture that killed Terence." The atmosphere in Tulsa over policing has been tense for years -- and the protests over Floyd's death in the custody of Minneapolis police only heightened them.Then came President Donald Trump's announcement that he would host a campaign rally in the city on Juneteenth --- a holiday celebrated annually by Tulsa's black residents.
"To come to the birthplace of Black Wall Street, a place where we had the worst domestic racist, terrorist attack in US history ...It's insulting, it's infuriating," Crutcher said. Today, the city remains segregated, but decades of urban renewal -- that has largely left the black neighborhood behind -- and depopulation have left Tulsa a tale of two cities. And in the black part of Tulsa -- north of the train tracks -- residents experience a form of policing they consider to be harassment. Recently, Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum angered residents -- especially the Crutcher family -- by denying that race played a role in Terence Crutcher's death. Then came comments from Tulsa Police Major Travis Yates, who has long been a controversial figure in the police force. Yates said officers are "shooting African Americans about 24% less than we probably ought to be, based on the crimes being committed." The Tulsa Police Department said that Yates is now under investigation and some Tulsa residents have called for his resignation. But the comments highlight a point of view that some residents believe is more pervasive and has justified an over policing of black neighborhoods in the city. "If you don't see me fully, as a human being, you're more inclined to harass me, more inclined to arrest me more than my white counterparts, more inclined to give me a more severe sentence than white counterparts, all of that based on fact," said Rep. Regina Goodwin.
