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In an upcoming 60 Minutes interview, the Tulsa, Oklahoma police officer charged for fatally shooting Terence Crutcher—an unarmed Black motorist—claims that race had nothing to do with the shooting. Instead it was about “his actions, his behaviors.”

CBS snagged the first-ever sit-down with Betty Shelby, who was charged with first-degree manslaughter for the 2016 shooting, says that Crutcher caused his own death through his failure to heed her commands after his car broke down on the road.

“I’m feeling that his intent is to do me harm and I keep thinking, ‘Don’t do this. Please don’t do this. Don’t make this happen,’” says Shelby.

According to Shelby, Crutcher kept reaching into his pocket suggesting to her, based on her experience, that he had a gun. When he got to the car window, Shelby remembers the moment he reached in.

“And it’s fast. Just that would tell any officer that that man’s going for a weapon…I say with a louder, more intense voice, ‘Stop. Stop! Stop!’ and he didn’t. And that’s when I took aim.”

While he a lab test found that he was intoxicated and had PCP in his system, CBS points out that helicopter footage and dashcam footage shows Crutcher had his hands up for much of the encounter, but Shelby still fired at him, she says, when he reached into his car.

Six days after the shooting, Tulsa prosecutors accused the officer of acting unreasonably and charged her with manslaughter. Shelby has plead not guilty.

However,Tiffany Crutcher, Terence’s twin sister, rejects all of Shelby’s excuses for killing her brother.

“Of course she’s saying everything she’s supposed to say to defend herself. What we saw on that video is what my dad always taught my brothers, taught us to do if we were pulled over by a police officer,”  Crutcher told CBS. “‘Put your hands in the air and put your hands on the car.’ And my brother did what my father taught us.”

She added: “We need our men and women in blue. But at the end of the day, they’re not warriors. They’re supposed to be our guardians,” she adds.

Shelby’s interview airs on Sunday, April 2 at 7 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.

SOURCE: CBS News

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