TULSA, Okla. (AP) - A man was shot and killed by officers when he refused to drop a knife and became aggressive, according to authorities in Tulsa.
Police said the man was shot in a city street Friday afternoon and died at a hospital. He is described only as white, his name hasn’t been released.
The names of the officers also haven’t been released. Police spokesman Leland Ashley said both are on paid leave pending a police investigation of the shooting, which may have been captured on a patrol vehicle’s dashboard camera.
The officers were investigating reports of a man approaching people with a knife when they encountered the man who refused to drop the knife and was shot with a stun gun, then two officers opened fire when the man began “aggressing” one of them, Ashley said.
Tulsa police homicide Sgt. Dave Walker said police deployed Tasers several times before they shot the man.
“None of them seemed to have an effect. I think the first one, only one probe hit so that would not complete the circuit,” Walker said.
Witnesses at the scene were inconsistent in their descriptions of the shooting with one telling a reporter the man was shot in the back and another saying he was shot in the chest.
“I do not know where he was shot,” said Ashley. “The information I have at this time is that he was aggressing one of the officers and both officers fired.”
The shooting is Tulsa’s sixth fatal officer-involved shooting this year, and the second this week after a police sniper shot an armed home-invasion suspect who was holding a 2-year-old girl hostage on Tuesday.
That shooting came just over a month after Officer Betty Shelby fatally shot Terence Crutcher, an unarmed black man. She has since been charged with first-degree manslaughter in his death and has pleaded not guilty.
Marq Lewis, an organizer of We The People, a group formed shortly after the April 2015 shooting of unarmed Eric Harris by Tulsa County volunteer sheriff’s deputy Robert Bates, released a statement Saturday questioning whether the use of deadly force in a populated area was in the best interest of the public.
“We also believe that this investigation should be completed by the state and not local law enforcement,” according to the statement.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.