Ohio police chief calls on cops to stop senseless shootings: “You are making us all look bad”

An Ohio police chief is fed up with police shootings that he said “are making us [officers] all look bad.”

Rodney Muterspaw, a police chief in Middletown, Ohio, posted the messages on Twitter in response to the Tulsa, Oklahoma, police shooting of Terence Crutcher, a 40-year-old black man who was unarmed when an officer shot and killed him.

Muterspaw also told a local newspaper that he will use the Tulsa shooting as a training opportunity. “It could be us tomorrow,” he told the Journal-News. “You have to look at it. It’s not second-guessing anybody. It’s training for us. It’s a chance to learn from it. We are not robots. We have an opinion too. If it makes our department better and keeps our officers safer, if it makes the city better, we should speak out about it.”

“We are like any job,” he added. “It’s not necessarily bad seeds or bad apples; people just aren’t prepared when something happens and they panic. You can train all day long. You can go through scenarios all day long. But you know you are not going to get hurt in those scenarios. But when it hits the fan, people sometimes panic.”

The Black Lives Matter movement has for years protested racial disparities in police use of force, which critics say Crutcher’s death exemplifies. But rarely are protesters joined by police in their criticisms, making Muterspaw’s comments particularly notable.

Video may have played a crucial role: Unlike past cases that relied on the testimony of eyewitnesses and police, Crutcher’s death was captured on camera — showing the 40-year-old unarmed and holding up his hands moments before he was shot and killed. In several police shootings and killings, such as those of Laquan McDonald in Chicago and Samuel DuBose in Cincinnati, similarly grisly images led prosecutors to file charges against the officers involved. Now these types of videos are apparently leading other members of law enforcement to speak out on social media.

Watch: Why recording the police is so important

Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism?

Most news outlets make their money through advertising or subscriptions. But when it comes to what we’re trying to do at Vox, there are a couple of big issues with relying on ads and subscriptions to keep the lights on:

First, advertising dollars go up and down with the economy. We often only know a few months out what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it hard to plan ahead.

Second, we’re not in the subscriptions business. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world — not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. And we can’t do that if we have a paywall.

So even though advertising is still our biggest source of revenue, we also seek grants and reader support. (And no matter how our work is funded, we have strict guidelines on editorial independence.)

If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today? Any amount helps.

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via