Submitting to Authorities is the Rule

Last September a Tulsa Police Officer shot and killed an unarmed man. You have surely heard about the case; it has had national publicity - lots of national publicity. Six days after the shooting the Tulsa District Attorney filed first degree manslaughter charges on the female officer involved. Yesterday a jury of 12 deliberated for over eight hours on the testimony they had heard through the week. They ruled Officer Shelby "not guilty" of manslaughter. That made some people very happy; it made others very angry. Thankfully, the angry people behaved themselves fairly well. As angry people often do, they said some stupid stuff; but we had no rioting, no destruction of property, and no one was injured. That is worth great gratitude. I hope it continues to be peaceful in my city. No one can blame the family of Terence Crutcher for being hurt and angry over their loved one's death. In hind-sight it did not need to happen. He was just a big black man on drugs. He had no gun on his person or in his vehicle. Officer Shelby was not really being threatened by Mr. Crutcher. We should all remember, however, that this is hind-sight - sight Officer Shelby did not have at the moment she pulled the trigger on her handgun. Neither did she know that Mr. Crutcher had several previous run-ins with the law. What this officer did know was that the man she encountered on the street where his abandoned SUV sat straddling the two lanes was behaving abnormally. Her training in recognizing the effects of drugs on people made here suspect the man was on PCP. She also knew that the man was not compliant with her commands. These things caused her to draw her handgun. I suppose you have watched the video of him walking back to his vehicle with hands held high, Officer Shelby following with her gun pointed at his back. What many people did not realize from that video was that the man walking away from the officer with his hands up in the air was disobeying orders from a police officer, orders shouted at him repeatedly. He was not told to keep walking; he was told to STOP! Mr. Crutcher's family wants to believe he was doing what his daddy always told him to do, "put your hands on top of your vehicle." If they could think clearly about what actually happened, and is documented in the police video of the event, was that he walked passed the back of his SUV where it would have been easy for him to put his hands on the top of the vehicle in submission. Instead, he walked around the back and the side up to the driver's door where the widow was down. Every step you saw the man take was a step of disobedience to an officer of the law. It is hard to see from the video, but the testimony was that Mr. Crutcher, who had turned to face his vehicle with the open window directly in front of him, dropped his hand to reach inside the vehicle. That was the trigger that caused two officers to pull their triggers - one with a stun gun and Officer Shelby with her firearm. No one will ever know what Mr. Crutcher was thinking or attempting to do when he made that last willful move. It was unquestionably a foolish move. It cost him everything. It cost his family dearly, too. We have heard many people judge Officer Shelby's actions based on what everyone knows in hind-sight. Fortunately, the jury in her case did not expect her to know what she could not have known. It could have been a gun for which he was reaching. Surely we would not expect an officer to ignore this possibility until it is too late. There is a passage of Scripture which I wonder if it is preached anywhere, but I especially wonder if it is preached in "black churches." The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Rome these words: "Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear [his weapon] for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience" (Romans 13:3-5 NIV). Mr. Crutcher's family would still have him with them - though they might have to visit him in jail for awhile - if only he would have done what he was told. So many want to focus on the message of his raised hands but ignore what his feet were saying, step after step after step. All those who are angry with the outcome of the trial want to make this tragedy the responsibility of the officer of the law. The dead man could have brought a different outcome by honoring God's Word and God's servant - in this case, Officer Betty Shelby. I do not expect much positive change in our culture until this Scripture is taken to heart. If we are going to rush to support black rebels because they are black, these problems will endure. Paul was not writing to people of any particular skin color. He was just writing to people who would embrace the will of God.