ATLANTA—Philando Castile. Eric Garner. And now Terence Crutcher. Each was a black man killed in a confrontation with an officer, with the aftermath captured on video. And each time, the video leaves the impression of a wounded man left to die alone, with no sense of urgency to try to save him.
Law-enforcement experts say it’s not a sign of callousness, but of trying to ensure the officers and others are safe before approaching someone who could be armed or remain a threat even after they’ve been shot.
Civil rights activists call it the ultimate indignity and one more example of indifference and quick-to-shoot attitudes of police toward minorities.
“When the police take actions that result in injury to you and then leave you on the ground to die, well, I think that’s a constitutional violation,” said Randolph M. McLaughlin, a civil rights attorney and professor at Pace Law School in New York City.
In the latest case, Crutcher, 40, was killed after his vehicle stalled in the middle of a street in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
A helicopter-mounted police camera recorded Crutcher walking toward his van with his hands up. On the video, as several officers follow him, he appears to reach into the vehicle when he is shot. As he lies on the ground, the officers stand nearby but no one provides aid until about a minute or two later.
That gap has stirred questions about why he was left in the street, motionless, unarmed and seemingly no threat.
Law enforcement experts say that in those situations, police are furiously trying to figure out whether there are other weapons nearby, whether other people might be in the vehicle and how much of a threat the person is. Is it safe for police or EMTs to approach? All of that must be determined, no matter how badly injured the wounded person might appear.
In countless cases, they say, people have been shot and yet still posed a threat. In one well-known 2013 case, a man in Oregon was pulled over by a state trooper; he emerged from the vehicle wearing military camouflage, fired multiple shots and then got back into his car. Although shot in the chest, he drove a mile away before collapsing from his injuries.
