This week’s top stories
Photo Credit: anver.com
By Nora Tidey, news editor
National
Terence Crutcher, a 40-year-old unarmed black man, was shot and killed by police in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Friday night.A dash-cam video shows Crutcher with his hands in the air moments before one of the officers fired her weapon. The officers who approached Crutcher were initially responding to a report of a stalled vehicle on the road. A spokeswoman of the Tulsa police told reporters that Crutcher refused to follow commands given by the responding officers. Crutcher, who was standing outside his vehicle, placed his hands on top of the car when asked by police to do so. Two of the officers thought Crutcher was reaching into his vehicle; one drew a stun gun and the other drew a handgun, both firing at almost the same time. Why Crutcher was considered a threat to police in the first place remains unknown. Before video documentation of the incident was release, Tulsa Police Chief Chuck Jordan announced that Crutcher had no weapon on him or in his vehicle when he was killed. There will be a Department of Justice civil rights investigation into this shooting, separate from the one that will be conducted by local authorities.
International
The United Nations announced on Tuesday that it is suspending overland air deliveries in Syria in response to an attack on an aid convoy that killed 20 civilians. Witnesses describe the attack as a prolonged and intense aerial bombardment on a Syrian Arab Red Crescent warehouse and convoy. The convoy was delivering assistance to nearly 78,000 people in Uram al-Kubra, a rebel-held town in Syria, and was carrying medicines, food, emergency health kits, and other essentials. According to witnesses, the bombing continued as rescue workers rushed to pull the wounded from the rubble. Both Russia and Syria have denied carrying out the bombing, but the White House Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said the U.S. is holding Russia responsible because it was Russia’s job to prevent Syria’s air force from striking in areas where humanitarian assistance was being transported. Russia’s Defense Ministry has claimed that a cargo fire caused the damage, but the U.S. is insisting that it was an airstrike. The suspension of overland air deliveries in Syria will jeopardize food and medical security for millions of besieged citizens.
