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Tulsa Officer Set To Return To Her Job, Police Chief Says

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Amber Randall Civil Rights Reporter
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Betty Shelby, the Tulsa police officer who shot an unarmed black man, will return to her job next week, the police chief announced Friday.

Shelby will keep her job but will not be returning to patrol duty, police chief Chuck Jordan wrote in an emailed statement.

“Pursuant to the jury verdict of acquittal in the criminal case of Officer Betty Shelby, she is being returned to duty. She will not be assigned in a patrol capacity,” Jordan said in the email.

Twelve jurors, three black and nine white, cleared Shelby of first degree manslaughter charges in the fatal shooting of Terence Crutcher, a black man, Wednesday night. Shelby maintained she shot Crutcher, who was on PCP at the time of his death, because he ignored officer commands and she feared for her safety. (RELATED: Jury Clears Tulsa Cop In Fatal Shooting, Protests Erupt)

Prosecutors, on the other hand, argued that Shelby escalated the situation, questioning why she did not use a Taser over a gun in her interaction with Crutcher.

The jurors also wrote a letter to Jordan asking that Shelby not be returned to patrol duty.

“There was a range of belief there,” one juror told the Frontier in an anonymous interview. “Some of us thought she would be good behind a desk. She sounded like an excellent diver. I thought she would have made a great EMT.”

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