The stories you want. The opinions that matter.
No, thanks
Tag: tulsa
Again: Gunman Kills Four At Tulsa Hospital In Latest Mass Shooting

Again: Gunman Kills Four At Tulsa Hospital In Latest Mass Shooting

Washington (AFP) - A gunman killed at least four people Wednesday at a hospital campus in Tulsa, Oklahoma, police said, the latest mass shooting to convulse America coming as Texas families bury their dead after a school massacre barely one week ago.

The suspect, who was armed with a rifle and a handgun, was also killed in the attack at the St. Francis Health System hospital campus, police said.

"Right now we have four civilians that are dead, we have one shooter that is dead, and right now we believe that is self-inflicted," Tulsa Police Department Deputy Chief Eric Dalgleish.

He said officers responded immediately after emergency calls came in that a shooter had stormed into the second floor of a clinic attached to St. Francis. Police went floor by floor, room by room in an effort to clear the building during what authorities described as an active shooter situation.

Earlier, Tulsa police Capt. Richard Meulenberg said officers were treating the scene as "catastrophic," with "several" people shot and "multiple injuries."

It was not clear how many other people might have been injured.

Dalgleish said the entire assault from the moment emergency calls came in to the time officers engaged the shooter lasted about four minutes.

President Joe Biden was briefed on the Tulsa shooting, the White House said in a statement, adding that the administration has offered support to local officials.

Uvalde Funerals

Elizabeth Buchner, a legal assistant who lives behind the clinic where the shooting occurred, said she rushed out of her house when she heard helicopters and more loud commotion coming from the direction of the hospital.

"It was the most law enforcement I've ever seen at one place in my entire life," Buchner, 43, told AFP by telephone.

She said she witnessed a tactical team rush inside one of the buildings, part of a response that she described as "fast and strong," with "no hesitation."

The shooting is the latest in a string of deadly assaults by gunmen that have rocked the United States in the past month.

On May 14 a white supremacist targeting African Americans killed 10 people at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York. The shooter survived and is facing charges.

Ten days later an 18-year-old gunman armed with an AR-15 burst into an elementary school in the small Texas town of Uvalde and killed 21 people -- 19 of them young children -- before being shot dead by law enforcement.

On Wednesday one of the two teachers killed in that attack was laid to rest in Uvalde, a day after the first funerals for the children.

Gun regulation faces deep resistance in the United States, from most Republicans and some rural-state Democrats.

But Biden -- who visited Uvalde over the weekend -- vowed earlier this week to "continue to push" for reform, saying: "I think things have gotten so bad that everybody is getting more rational about it."

Some key federal lawmakers have also voiced cautious optimism and a bipartisan group of senators worked through the weekend to pursue possible areas of compromise.

They reportedly were focusing on laws to raise the minimum age for gun purchases or to allow police to remove guns from people considered a threat to themselves or others -- but not on an outright ban on high-powered rifles like the weapons used in Uvalde and Buffalo.

Fort Worth Police at the scene of a violent crime.

Murder Rate Rose In Republican Cities, Too

If you're worried by the rise in violent crime — a real and troubling phenomenon — don't ask Republicans for solutions. All they can offer is a blame game that relies on dubious cherry-picked data. To get their message, just glance at Breitbart.com, the home of hard-right hackery: "Violent Crime Surges 25 Percent in 2021 With Democrats in Washington." You can find dozens of similar headlines across right-wing platforms, which invariably announce "skyrocketing crime rates in Dem-run cities." (Stay tuned for grainy video of a disturbing attack.)

Then there's former President Donald Trump himself, the loudest presidential loser in history, blathering fantastical statistics that are meant to show how dangerous life is in America now that he's gone.

Such assertions may momentarily satisfy the two-minute anger ritual that substitutes for critical thinking among the Republican base. Whenever something bad is happening, it can only be the result of a conspiracy implicating Democrats, immigrants, minorities, immigrants and minorities in cities — and preferably all of the above. Rising crime fulfills both the cynical strategy of Republican politicians and the primitive emotions of their voters.

But should you wish to understand what's actually happening, not only in major cities but in towns and counties of every size, then it's worth examining data beyond the Republican talking points.

Murder rates are indeed going up in cities around the country. And because most cities are governed by Democratic mayors, it is accurate to say that violent crime rates are rising in "Democrat-run cities." But, as the Republicans parroting that line of propaganda know, it's also accurate to say that violent crime is rising in "Republican-led cities."

While the murder rate has gone up in Chicago and Detroit and Philadelphia, all run by Democrats, the murder rate has likewise gone up in Tulsa and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; in Fort Worth, Texas; in Fresno, California; and in Miami, Florida. Every one of those cities is run by a Republican mayor and overseen by a Republican governor.

Jacksonville, Florida, is known as the "murder capital" of the Sunshine State — and has had a Republican mayor for the past six years. Fort Worth survived its most violent year in the past quarter century in 2020, with a murder rate that nearly doubled from the previous year. Betsy Price has been the city's Republican mayor for the past 10 years.

The point is not, of course, that Republican mayors are culpable for the shocking upsurge in violence that beset their cities last year — nor were they probably responsible for the sharp drops in crime that the entire country experienced over the past two decades. The underlying causes of crime rates, whether trending up or down, have puzzled criminologists, cops and other honest experts for many years.

Equally inaccurate is the claim that "defund the police" — a wrongheaded and confusing slogan briefly popular in the aftermath of George Floyd's 2020 murder — has sparked the growing number of urban killings. But the data show clearly that the same trend is evident across cities, whether they increased or decreased police funding. Even stupid slogans don't kill people.

Guns do kill, however — and among the suggestive statistics of the pandemic is the alarming national flood of firearms purchases. While most crime remains relatively low compared to previous decades, gun violence is way up. The National Rifle Association might tell you that more guns make us more safe, but life doesn't actually work that way.

The extremes on both sides of this issue are misguided. We would almost certainly be safer with more and better-trained police as well as fewer and better-tracked guns. Still, the plain fact is that we don't yet know for sure why the rates of the worst violent crimes went up over the past year or so.

What we do know — and what someone should tell Trump whenever he opens his mouth to exacerbate racial polarization — is that the sharp increase began in 2020. Yes, that was during his presidency. So, you could write a headline blaring: "Homicide Rates Increased 53 Percent in Major Cities Between 2019 and 2020," and that would be true, too.

Would that claim prove anything? Not really. Except that on issues of public policy, the former guy and his little partisan echoes should pipe down.

To find out more about Joe Conason and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Betty Shelby Turns Herself In For Killing Of Terence Crutcher, Is Bonded Out

Betty Shelby Turns Herself In For Killing Of Terence Crutcher, Is Bonded Out

(Reuters) – A white Tulsa, Oklahoma police officer, who fatally shot an unarmed black man whose vehicle had broken down and blocked a street last week, turned herself in to authorities on a manslaughter charge early on Friday, jail records showed.

Betty Shelby, 42, was booked into the Tulsa County Jail just after 1:00 a.m. local time after being charged on Thursday with first-degree manslaughter in the death of 40-year-old Terence Crutcher.

Shelby was released on $50,000 bond and is scheduled for an initial court appearance on Sept. 30.

Court papers filed by the Tulsa County office accuse Shelby of overreacting and escalating the situation that led to the shooting of Crutcher last Friday. If convicted, she faces at least four years in prison, lawyers said.

The incident, which was captured on police videos, has intensified scrutiny over the use of excessive force and claims of racial bias by U.S. law enforcement officials against minorities.

Charlotte in North Carolina has seen three nights of protests, some of them violent, after the fatal shooting of a black man by police there on Tuesday.

In two videos provided by Tulsa police, Crutcher can be seen with his hands in the air shortly before he was shot.

Tulsa police have said Crutcher was unarmed and there was no weapon in the vehicle. They released the videos, one of which was taken from a police helicopter and the other from a dashboard camera in a patrol car, in a bid for transparency.

Shelby said she was traveling to another call when she came upon Crutcher, whose broken-down SUV was blocking a road. She said he did not respond to her questions and did not respond to her commands to stop as he walked to his vehicle with his hands in the air, it said.

(Additional reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

Photo: Tulsa, Oklahoma Police Officer Betty Shelby, 42, charged with first-degree manslaughter in the death of 40-year-old Terence Crutcher, is shown in this Tulsa County Jail booking photo in Tulsa, Oklahoma, U.S., September 23, 2016.  Courtesy Tulsa County Jail/Handout via REUTERS

Experts Doubt Oklahoma Deputy’s Claim He Confused Pistol With Stun Gun

Experts Doubt Oklahoma Deputy’s Claim He Confused Pistol With Stun Gun

By James Queally, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

The Tulsa, Okla., volunteer deputy involved in the shooting death of an unarmed man earlier this month demonstrated how he confused his pistol with a stun gun during an interview on the “Today” show Friday morning, but law enforcement experts are skeptical about his explanation.

Robert Charles Bates, a 73-year-old insurance executive, showed NBC’s Matt Lauer during the interview where he normally carried his stun gun and handgun.

Asked to recreate his fatal clash with Eric Courtney Harris, 44, Bates said he kept his handgun in a hip holster, far away from the stun gun, which was normally kept closer to his chest.

On April 2, Tulsa County sheriff’s deputies were chasing Harris, who had run away from officers trying to arrest him on suspicion of gun charges. Body camera video of the incident shows another deputy tackle Harris to the ground as Bates, who is standing offscreen, shouts “Taser!”

Instead of the stun gun, Bates produced his sidearm and fired one shot, mortally wounding Harris.

“I shot him; I’m sorry,” Bates can be heard saying on the video, which showed that he then dropped his gun on the ground.

Bates has been charged with manslaughter by local prosecutors, who say his negligence led to Harris’ death. He faces up to four years in prison if convicted.

During the Friday interview, Bates apologized to Harris’ family, calling the shooting “the second worst thing that ever happened” to him next to having cancer, before saying it was the No. 1 worst thing. But he also contended that he is one of several law enforcement officials to make the tragic mistake of firing a deadly weapon when they meant to choose a nonlethal option.

“Well, let me say, this has happened a number of times around the country. I have read about it in the past. I thought to myself after reading several cases, I don’t understand how this can happen,” Bates said. “You must believe me, it can happen to anyone.”

Law enforcement experts, however, told the Los Angeles Times they were skeptical of Bates’ argument, especially since the 73-year-old said his stun gun is normally holstered far from his sidearm.

“It’s a muscle memory issue. Is it possible? Yeah, but only because it’s not impossible,” said Sid Heal, a retired commander with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and chairman of strategy development for the National Tactical Officers Association. “It’s not very plausible.”

While similar incidents, typically referred to as “cross-contamination” because of the confusion of lethal and nonlethal options, are not unheard of, Heal said they usually involve officers who carry both their firearm and stun gun at the hip.

Officers carrying both weapons normally keep their lethal weapons holstered beneath their dominant hand, while the stun gun hangs to the opposite side of their body. The anxiety and panic of a life-or-death situation can sometimes cause a deadly mix-up.

“When you’re scared, or you’re not thinking clearly, you will go to your muscle memory, so they pull the wrong gun,” he said.

Bates, however, knew the stun gun was not at his side.

The case is similar to a high-profile 2009 case in Oakland, Calif., in which unarmed 22-year-old Oscar Grant III was fatally shot by a transit officer who said he accidentally grabbed his gun instead of his Taser.

The officer in that case, Johannes Mehserle, faced a second-degree murder charge but was ultimately convicted of a lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter after a jury found the shooting was unintentional. He was sentenced to two years in prison. Grant’s killing was the basis of the 2013 film “Fruitvale Station.”

Wayne Fisher, a professor of police policy at Rutgers University in New Jersey, said discussion of Bates’ purported mistake is masking the more serious issue at play in Harris’ death, which happened during a sting operation: Why did the sheriff’s office allow an elderly, inexperienced volunteer to be involved in such an operation, especially if the target was a known felon, as Harris was?

“Police work is not a hobby to be engaged in during people’s free time or weekend hours,” Fisher said. “It doesn’t just have to do with the training. It has to do with the experience of being in the profession full time, day in and day out, year after year.”

Fisher said there are plenty of tasks suited for reserve and auxiliary officers, but he described an operation like Harris’ arrest as “the very activity that they should not be involved in.”

Concern over officers’ confusing lethal and nonlethal weapons was stoked earlier this year, when the Ferguson, Mo., Police Department said it would consider employing “The Alternative,” a device developed by a San Diego entrepreneur to lessen the lethality of a bullet.

The device, an attachment that captures a bullet inside a “less lethal” metal sphere but still carries the force of the projectile, was panned by experts because it can only be fired once.

If an officer shoots twice during a lethal force situation, as they are commonly trained to do, the second shot would release a live round.

(Times staff writer Matt Pearce contributed to this report.)

(c)2015 Los Angeles Times, Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

Image: screenshot of raw footage from the foot chase that ended with the shooting, via YouTube. Center: Eric Courtney Harris.